
Class u-« vl 
Book_ 



fopyriglitl^^. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 




DE SOTO ON THE MARCH. 
Designed and engraved expressly for Tin-; Stoky ok America. 



THE 



STORY OF AMERICA 



CONTAINING 



THE ROMANTIC INCIDENTS OF HISTORY, FROM THE 

DISCOVERY OF AMERICA TO THE 

PRESENT TIME. 



WRITTEN BY 



Yv^-o) 



ELI A W. PEATTIE, 



AUTHOR OF 



•THE EXECUTIONER OF THE REVOLUTION," "A STORY OF BLOCK ISLAND," "GRIZEL 

COCHRAN," "THE VOYAGEUR," "MICAH ROOD," AND 

OTHER HISTORIC TALES. 



CONTRIBUTOR TO 

ST. NICHOLAS, WIDE AWAKE, THE AMERICAN MAGAZINE, AMERICA, COSMOPOLITAN, 

LIPPINCOTT'S, JUDGE'S YOUNG PEOPLE, EVERY OTHER SUNDAY, 

DAUGHTERS OF AMERICA, AND MANY 

OTHER PERIODICALS. 




CHICAGO : 

R. S. KING PUBLISHING COMPANY. 

1889. 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1SS9, by 

R. S. KING PUBLISHING COMPANY, 
In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



Chapter. 

I. Mastodons and Mystery. 

Earliest Inhabitants — The Mound-Builders — The American 
Indians. 

II. The Legendary Century. 

The First Discoverers of America — Myths, Legends and 
Traditions — Journey of the Norsemen. 

III. The Dreamer of Genoa. 

Columbus and His Voyages — Amerigo Vespucci — The 
Cabots. 

IV. Across the Dark Water. 

Ponce De Leon — The Fountain of Youth — The Discovery 
of the South Sea by Balboa — De Soto — His Death. 

V. The Lilies of France. 

France: Her Explorers and Settlements — The Fight Be- 
tween French and Spanish Colonies. 

VI. A Lodge in the Wilderness. 

The English — Their Search for the Northwest Passage — 
Frobisher's Explorations — Sir Humphrey Gilbert's Set- 
tlement — The Colony of Sir Walter Raleigh — Gosnold's 
Failure. 

Vli. Founding the Old Dominion. 

The London and Plymouth Companies — The Virginian 
Settlement — Captain John Smith and His Wonderful Ad- 
ventures — Pocahontas — The New Charter — The Wreck 
of the "Sea Adventure." 

VIII. Through Death to Victory. 

From the Bermudas to Virginia — The Starving Times — 
The Arrival of Lord De la Warre — Help from England — 
The Beginning of Slavery — The First Blow at Intem- 
perance. 

IX. Norumbega, the Beautiful. 

The Settlement of Maine — The Voyage of the English — 
Champlain and Vermont — The Settlement of Mt. Desert. 



ii Table of Contents. 

Chapter. * 

X. Conquest of the Wilderness. 

Nova Scotia and the English Despoliation — The Settlement 
of New Hampshire — The Mode of Northern Colonial 
Government. 
XI. The Dutchmen of New Netherland. 

The Settlement of New York— The Dutch: Their Explora- 
tions and Settlements — Their Dealings with the In- 
dians — Their Success. 

XII. The Mayflower. 

The Puritans — Their Trials and Wanderings — The Landing 
at Plymouth Rock— The First Winter. 

XIII. The Daily Round. 

The Next Three Years — The Order, Civil, Martial and Re- 
ligious, which they Maintained — The Manner of their 
Daily Living, etc. 

XIV. The Reward of Treachery. 

The Massacre at Jamestown — Lord Baltimore and the Set- 
tlement of Maryland — The Liberal Laws of the Baltimore 
Settlement. 

XV. The Peace-Keepers. 

Prosperity of the Maryland Settlement — Conspiracies Against 
Them — The Triumph of Virginia Over Them, and the 
Persecution of the Catholics — Calvert's Success and the 
Return of the Jesuits. 

XVI. A Brief Authority. 

New Jersey — The Settlement Under Peter Minuet — Oppo- 
sition of the Dutch — The Triumphs of the Dutch Under 
Peter Stuyvesant — End of Swedish Independence in 
America. 

XVII. Old Wine in New Bottles. 

The "Patroons" of New Netherland — The Settlement at 
Manhattan — The Manners and Customs of the Dutch — 
Establishment of Popular Land Laws. 

XVIII. Knickerbocker Days. 

The Government of William the Testy — Trouble with the 
Indians — The Night Attack on Pavonia — Revenge of the 
Indians — Dismissal of Kieft and Arrival of Peter Stuy- 
vesant. 



Table of Contents. 



Ill 



Chapter. 

XIX. 



XX. 



XXI. 



XXII. 



XXIII. 



XXIV. 



XXV. 



XXVI. 



The Old Bay Settlement. 

The Massachusetts Bay Company — The Trials of the First 
Year — Arrival of Roger Williams — John Eliot — Perse- 
cution of Williams — His Settlement at Providence. 
The Ravages of Civilization. 

The American Indian — The Destruction of the Block 
Island Indians — The Extinction of the Pequot Tribe — 
The Federation of the English Colonies. 
The Pride of the Righteous. 

The Religious Law of Boston — Gorton and His Beliefs — 
The Settlement at Shewanet — Persecution of the Gor- 
tonites — Persecution of the Baptists — The Obtaining of 
a Royal Charter for Rhode Island and the Providence 
Plantations. 

Through Pain to Peace. 

The Quakers — Their Persecution — George Fox and His 
Friends — Mary Fisher and Ann Austin — The Quaker 
Children. 

The Royalist Colony of Virginia. 

Governor Berkeley and His Reign — More Trouble with 
the Indians — The Puritans A?-ain Victorious — The Re- 
turn of the Stuarts to Power. 

"Hey, for St. Mary's!" 

The Colony of Virginia — The Indians — The Uprising of 
Bacon and His Friends — Restriction of the Governor's 
Rights — Return of Berkeley — Desertion of Jamestown — 
Death of Bacon— Breaking up of Bacon's Party. 
Each for Himself. 

The Carolinas — The Proprietors and Their "Grand 
Model" — The Albemarle Settlement— The Removal of 
Charleston — The Spanish Buccaneers — Seth Sothell — 
Quaker Rule. 

Man's Inhumanity to Man. 

Attack of Indians on New Netherland — Destruction of 
Pavonia — Persecution of Lutherans and Quakers at 
New Amsterdam — Slavery Among the Dutch — English 
Encroachments — Surrender of New Netherland — Settle- 
of New Jersey. 



IV 



Table of Contents. 



Chapter. 

XXVIL 



XXVIII. 



XXIX. 



XXX. 



XXXI. 



XXXIL 



XXXIII. 



Our Country, Right or Wrong. 

Political Policy of Massachusetts — Efforts of England to 
Recover the Charter — Edward Randolph — Coin of the 
Colony — Sir Edmund Andros — The Episode of the 
Connecticut Charter — Arrest of Andros and Election 
of Phips — Death of Phips. 

Days of Dread. 

King Philip's War— Fight at Brookfield— Fight at Had- 
ley — Fight at Deerfield. 

A Passing Madness. 

How the Witchcraft Hallucination Started — Samuel Par- 
tis and His Witch-craft Library- — The Trial and Death 
of Giles Corey and Other Victims of this Hallucination. 

A Gentleman. 

William Penn — The Settlement of Pennsylvania — Re- 
markable Growth of the Colony — Change of Govern- 
ment — Restoration of Penn — His Death — The Slavery 
Question — Benjamin Franklin. 

The Dutchman's Fireside. 

The Rule of Lovelace at New York — The Dutch Retake 
the City — It Again Reverts to the English by Patent — 
Governor Andros and His Unpopular Rule — Leisler 
Assumes Control — Trouble with New France. 

Frontenac the Fighter. 

Frontenac's Attack Upon New York — The Massacre at 
Schenectady — New York is Fortified by Leisler — 
Sloughter is Sent to Supersede Him — Leisler's Defense 
Gets Him Into Trouble — The Governor's Dastardly 
Taking Off 

The Pest of the Pirates. 

The Rule of Governor Fletcher — Fletcher Succeeded by 
the Earl of Bellomont — The Commission of Captain 
Kidd, and How it was Carried Out — Lord Cornbury 
Becomes Governor — The Expeditions Against Port 
Royal and Quebec. 



Table of Contents. 



Chapter. 

XXXIV. 



XXXV. 



XXXVI. 



XXXVII. 



XXXVIII. 



XXXIX. 



XL. 



The HoIvY Voyageurs. 

The French and the Discoveries in the Northwest — 
Fathers Joliet and Marquette Discover the Source of 
the Mississippi and Sail Down the River — Death of 
Marquette — The Expedition of La Salle and Henne- 
pin — Louisiana Discovered and Named. 

The Chevalier La Salle. 

La Salle Lands on the Shore of Texas — He is Mur- 
dered — The Hut in the Wilderness — The Expedition 
of d' Iberville — The Settlement of New Orleans, and 
the Mississippi — Scheme of John Law — The Massacre 
of Chopart — Bienville's Ill-fated Expedition Against 
the Chickasaws. 

The Land of Gold. 

California — Spanish Explorers — The Journey of Sir 
Francis Drake — The Coast Indians — Expedition of 
Espejo — Overthrow of the Jesuits — Onate and His 
Labors — The Missions at the South — The Decline of 
Spain and Her Colonies. 

The Carolinas. 

Sir Nathaniel Johnson in Carolina — Strategy at Fort 
Johnson — Religious Differences — Massacre of 171 1 — 
Uprising in South Carolina — The Yemassees — The 
Buccaneers — Rebellion Against the Proprietors. 
From Alleys and By-ways. 
How Georgia Came to be Settled — The Emigrants — The 
Wesleys and Whitefield — The March of the Slaves — 
The Spanish Attack — Georgia as a Royal Province. 

The Cavaliers of Virginia. 

Culpepper in Virginia — Governor Effingham — Nicholson 
and Andros — The Growth of Industries — Maryland — 
The Clergymen of Virginia. 

A Reign of Terror. 

The First Trial for Libel in America — The Negro Plot 
in 1 741 — The Burning of Quack and the Hanging of 
Ury — The Mingling of Dutch and English in New 
York — The Government of Lieutenant-Governor 
Clark. 



VI 



Table of Contents. 



XLL The Clash of Arms and Ideas. 

Lord Bellomont's Rule Over New York, New Hampshire 
and ]\Iassachusetts — Dudley's Rule — The French and 
English War of 1702— Taking of Port Royal — The 
Lumberers' Difficulties in ]\Iaine and New Hampshire. 

XLH. "Americans Are Born Rebels." 

Expedition of Maine and New Hampshire Against the 
Norridgewocks — The Command of Captain John Lov- 
ell — William Drummer in Massachusetts — Whitefield's 
Revival and Shirley's Administration — Louisburg — 
The Surrender. 

XLHL "They Nurse Treason With Their Milk." 

The Growing Spirit of Independence — The First Expe- 
dition Against Fort Du Quesne — The Colonists for 
Aggression and Offense — Braddock's Ill-fated Expedi- 
tion — George Washington's First Appearance — Brad- 
dock's Defeat and Death. 

XLIV. Desolated Acadia. 

French and English Settlements in Nova Scotia — The 
Rivalry Between the Settlements — Colonel Winslow 
Drives Out the Acadians — The Pathetic Exodus — Per- 
secution of the Exiles. 

XLV. The Lion or the Lilies. 

Operations Against the French in the North — The Battle 
at Bloody Pond — The French Take Forts Oswego and 
William Henry — The English Retake Louisburg — The 
Battle of Carillon — The English Retake Oswego and 
Capture Frontenac and Du Quesne. 

XLVI. The Paths of Glory. 

The Expedition Against Quebec — The Night Attack and 
the Fight on the Plains of Abraham — The Death of 
Montcalm and Wolfe — New Orleans and the Mississippi 
Valley Given to Spain. 

XLVII. A Blow for Liberty. 

Pontiac, Chief of the Ottawas — Arrival of Rogers' Men 
at Detroit — Pontiac' s Conspiracy — Beginning of War— 
The Siege of Detroit— The Battle of Bloody Bridge. 



Table of Contents. vii 

Chapter. 

XLVIII. C^AR Had His Brutus. 

The Stamp Act — Condition of the Colonies — The Oppo- 
sition to Taxation — Repeal of the Stamp Act — Refusal 
of the Assembly to Provide for the Troops Sent Over 
by England. 

XLIX. The Boston Tea-Drinkers. 

Trouble in Boston — "The Boston Massacre" — The Tea 
Tax — Attitude of Governor Hutchinson — The Boston 
"Tea Party"— The Boston Port Bill. 
L. The Blood of Patriots. 

The First Blood of the Revolution— The Men of Bille- 
rica — Fight at Concord and Lexington — The Siege of 
Boston— The Battle of Bunker Hill. 
LI. Liberty or Death. 

Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys — Surrender 
of Ticonderoga — Washington Chosen Commander-in- 
Chief— The Lack of Powder— Recall of General Gage- 
Small Naval Conquests. 

LH. The Plains of Abraham. 

The Designs for the American Conquest of Canada — 
Montgomery's Move Against Montreal — Arnold's Fail- 
ure at Quebec — The Union of the Forces — The Second 
Defeat at Montreal — The Americans Fall Back Upon 
Ticonderoga and Crown Point. 
LHI. The Palmetto Logs. 

The Feeling in England — The Hiring of the Hessians — 
Attitude of New York— The Conflict with the South- 
ern Colonies — The Defense of Fort Moultrie. 
LIV. The Sons of Liberty. 

The Growth of a Desire for Independence — The Declara- 
tion of Independence — The Forming of State Consti- 
tutions. 

LV. The Continentals. 

Washington at New York — Arrival of Thirty- two Thou- 
sand British Troops — Overtures for Peace by the 
British— Battle of Long Island— The Battle of Harlem 
Heights — Destruction of New York — Battle of White 
Plains. 



Vlll 



Table of Contents. 



Chapter. 

LVI. 



LVII. 



LVIII. 



LIX. 



LX. 



LXI. 



LXII. 



LXIIl. 



Battle Field and Bivouac. 

The Jersey Campaign— The Battle of Trenton— The Battle 
of Princeton — Winter Encampment of Washington at 
Morristown. 

The Year of the Three Gallows. 

State of the American Army — The Pennsylvania Cam- 
paign — The Battle of Brandywine — The "Paoli Massa- 
cre"— The British at Philadelphia— The Battle at Ger- 
mantown — Washington Winters at Valley Forge. 

Tattered Conquerors. 

Washington's Camp at Valley Forge — Neglect of Congress — 
The Conway Cabal — General Steuben — Burgoyne in the 
North — The Siege of Ticonderoga— The Battle of Oris- 
kany. 

"Elbow Room." 
The Raid on Bennington — General Gates Given Command 
at the North — The Battle of Freeman's Farm — Battle of 
Bemus Heights — Surrender of Burgoyne. 

Sabre and Musket. 

Evacuation of Philadelphia by the British — The Battle of 
Monmouth Court House — Firing of Bedford and Fair- 
haven — The Wyoming Massacre — Warfare in the West. 

The "Bon Homme Richard." 

British Reduction of Georgia — The Destruction of New 
Haven — The Americans Capture Stony Point — The Great 
Naval Engagement of John Paul Jones. 

The Six Nations. 

Expedition Against the Six Nations — The Civilization of 
the Indians — Humiliation of the Six Nations — Expedi- 
tion up the Mississippi from Louisiana — Triumph of 
Clinton in the South. 

"Whom Can We Trust Now?" 

Plans of the Two Armies — Siege of Charleston b>- the 
English — Capture of the American Army at the South — 
The Burning of Connecticut Farms — Arrival of Rocham- 
beau — Treason of General Arnold. 



Table of Contents. 



IX 



Chapter. 

LXIV. 



LXV. 



IvXVI. 



LXVII. 



LXVIII. 



LXIX. 



LXX. 



LXXI. 



LXXIL 



LXXIII. 



"I Have Sent You a General." 
Cornwallis and Gates at the South — The Command of the 
Southern Force Given to General Green — The Battle 
of King's Mountain — Battle of Guilford Court House. 
The United States of America. 

Arnold's Expedition — Battle Between Cornwallis and 
Lafayette — The Siege of Yorktown and Surrender of 
Cornwallis — The Sacking of New London by Arnold. 

The Plowshare Versus the Sword. 

Condition of the Country at the Close of the Revolution — 
John Adams Made Minister to England — The Disband- 
ing of the Army — The Call for Delegates to Construct 
a Constitution. 

"First in War, First in Peace." 
The Forming of the Constitution — Washington Elected 
President. 

Starting the Wheels of Progress. 

Hamilton's Policy as the First Secretary of State — In- 
crease of American Commerce — The Question of 
Slavery — Frontier Troubles at the West. 

The Courtly Times of Washington. 

Death of Franklin — The Humor of Washington's Time — 
The Policy of Hamilton — The Pennsylvania Whisky 
Riots. 

A Democracy. 

The Political Parties of the Young Nation — The Jay 
Treaty — Election of John Adams to the Presidency — 
Alien and Sedition Laws — Trouble with France. 

A Modern Lucifer. 

The Fries Insurrection — Selection of the National Capi- 
tal — Death of Washington — Louisiana — Aaron Burr. 

Decatur's Tribune. 

The Piracy of the Barbary States — War with Tripoli — 
Exploits of our Naval Heroes — Triumph of America. 

"Jeffersonian Simplicity." 

Exploration of the Northwest — Introduction of the Steam- 
boat — Passage of a Law Forbidding the African Slave 
Trade — The Jeffersonian Policy — IMaritime Troubles. 



Table of Contents. 



Chapter. 

LXXIV 



LXXV 



LXXVI. 



LXXVII. 



LXXVIII. 



LXXIX. 



LXXX. 



LXXXI. 



War Again. 

Administration of James Madison — The Southern War 
Party — Declaration of War and Popular Protest — The 
Troubles on the Western Frontier — The Chicago ISIas- 
sacre — Surrender of Hull. 

"Never Give Up the Ship.' 
War of 1 8x2 — The Niagara Campaign — The Battle of 
Queenstown — Naval Operations — The Six Triumphs 
of the Americans — Affairs in the West — The Conflict 
on the Lakes — Perry's Victory. 

"Blue Lights." 
The War with the Creeks — Jackson's Campaign — Affairs 
on the Sea-board — "Yankee Strategy" — The Treaty 
of Peace. 

A Country Without a Capital. 
Jackson's Campaign Among the Creeks — Discourage- 
ments on the Northern Frontier — The Battle of 
Lundy's Lane — The War on the Sea-coast for 1814 — 
The Capture and Destruction of the City of Washing- 
ton — Vicissitudes at the South — The Battle of New 
Orleans. 

A Transient Amiability. 

The Era of Good Feeling — War with Algiers — Finan- 
cial Condition of the Country — The First Seminole 
War — The Missouri Compromise. 

The Second Adams. 

Monroe's Administration — Election to the Presidency of 
John Ouincy Adams — The Assertion of State Su- 
premacy in Georgia — Tariff Disputes — Andrew Jack- 
son Elected President — The Financial Crisis of 1S37. 

Fiction and Truth. 

The Literary Histor}' of the Last Fifty Years — The 
Abolitionists. 

A House Divided Against Itself. 

Second Seminole War — Election of Van Buren — Finan- 
cial Depression — Election of William Henry Har- 
rison — The Dorr Rebellion — The Mormons — Annex- 
ation of Texas. 



Table of Contents. 



XI 



Chatter. 

LXXXIL 



LXXXIIL 



LXXXIV. 



LXXXV. 



LXXXVL 



J.XXXVII. 



LXXXVIII. 



LXXXIX. 



The Sad Plain of Monterey, 

The Administration of Polk, and the War with 
Mexico — Various Severe Battles — Conquest of Cali- 
fornia and New Mexico — Occupation of the City of 
Mexico — Treaty of Peace — Birth of the Free Soil 
Party and Election of Taylor. 

Gold and Iron Chains. 

Death of Taylor, and Administration of Millard Fill- 
more — Discovery of Gold in California — Slavery 
Agitation — The Trouble in Kansas. 

The Truth Goes Marching On. 

Sacking of Lawrence— John Brown and the Destruction 
of Ossawottomie — Election of Buchanan — Assault 
on Sumner — The Mormons — Election of Lincoln. 

"We Are Coming, Father Abraham." 
Secession — The Southern Confederacy — Attack on 
Fort Sumpter — The First Call for Troops — The 
Three Years' Enlistment— The Battle of Bull Run. 

The Union Forever. 

Attitude of Foreign Powers — Bombardment of Forts at 
Hatteras Inlet — Conquest of Charleston Harbor — 
The Campaign West of the Alleghanies — Grant at 
Forts Henry and Donelson — The War in Missouri. 

WtTH Shot and Shell. 

The Capture of New Orleans — Fight Between the 
"Monitor" and the "Merrimac." 

Shiloh and its Sequel. 

The Campaign at Island No. lo — The Battle of 
Shiloh— Siege of Corinth— The Conflict at the East 
Under McClellan— Siege of Yorktown— The Battle 
of Williamsburg — The Battle of Seven Pines — 
Battle of Chickahominy — Battle of Malvern Hill. 

Close of the Peninsula Campaign. 

The Army of Virginia Under the Command of Pope — 
General Halleck Made General-in-Chief— Battle of 
Cedar Mountain — McClellan Leaves the Peninsula — 
Battle of Groveton — Loss of Generals Stevens and 
Kearney. 



Xll 



Table of Contents. 



Chapter. 

xc. 



XCL 



XCII. 

XCIII. 

XCIV. 

xcv. 

XCVI. 

XCVII. 

XCVI II. 
XCIX. 



The Bloody Field of Antietam. 

Lee's Army Moves Northward — The Battle of South 
Mountain — The Battle of Antietam. 

"All Us Niggahs is Free!" 
Burnside Made Commander-in-Chief of the Army of the 
Potomac — The Battle of Fredericksburg — The Eman- 
cipation Proclamation — Battles of Perryville, luka, 
Corinth, Murfreesboro and Chancellorsville. 

The Deadly Parallels. 

The Battle of Gettysburg and the Siege of Vicksburg. 

The Martyrs. 

Why the War Did Not End After Gettysburg— The New 
York Riots — Atrocities in the South — Southern Prison 
Pens. 

The Swamp Angel. 

The Siege of Charleston — Dupont's Defeat — Gilmore's 
Siege — The "Swamp Angel" — Morgan's Raids. 

"The River of the Dead." 

Campaign at the West Between Generals Rosecrans and 
Bragg — Battle of Chickamauga — Battle of Chatta- 
nooga — The Sanitary and Christian Commissioners. 

"Forward by the Left Flank." 
Grant Given Absolute Command — The Battle of the 
Wilderness — "Forward by the Left Flank" — Second 
Battle of Cold Harbor. 

The Confederate Cruisers. 

The Confederate Privateers — Fight Between the "Kear- 
sarge" and "Alabama" — The International Court of 
Arbitration — Sherman and the Western Campaign. 

"After You, Pilot!" 

Sherman's March to Atlanta — The Bombardment of Mo- 
bile — Destruction of the "Albemarle." 

From Atlanta to the Sea. 

The March from Atlanta to the Sea — The Entrance to 
Savannah — The Siege of Richmond — Burnside's Blun- 
der — The Burning of Chambersburg, 



Table of Contents. 



Xlll 



Chapter. 

c. 



CI. 



CIL 



CIIL 



CIV. 



CV. 



CVI. 



CVII. 
CVIII. 



Whirling Through Winchester. 

Sheridan and the Shenandoah Campaign — Sherman's March 
Northward from Savannah — The Burning of Columbia. 

"Oh, Captain! My Captain!" 
Closing of the Virginia Campaign — The Evacuation of 
Richmond — Surrender of Lee at Appomattox Court 
House — Assassination of President Lincoln. 

"Ye Cannot Serve Two Masters." 
Administration of Andrew Johnson — Capture of Jefferson 
Davis — Reconstruction — Impeachment of President John- 
son — Purchase of Alaska — Returning Prosperity to the 
Union. 

A Hundred Years of Liberty. 

Administration of Grant — The Ku-Klux Klan — The Chi- 
cago Fire — The Custer Massacre — The Panic of 1873 — 
The Centennial Exposition — Administration of President 
Hayes — Railroad Riots of 1877. 

The Old Haymarket. 

Election and Death of President James A. Garfield — Ad- 
ministration of Arthur — The Anarchists of Chicago. 

Civil-Service Reform. 

President Cleveland's Administration — Civil-Service Reform 
and Pension Bills — ]Many Noted Union Generals Pass 
Away — Death of General Grant — Prominent Events of 
Four Years of Democratic Power. 

President Harrison's Inauguration. 

The Members of the Cabinet and the Foreign Ministers — 
The Celebration of the Centennial Anniversary of Wash- 
ington's Inauguration — The Opening of Oklahoma Ter- 
ritory — The Samoan Disaster. 

Of the Making of Good Books, Etc. 
The Literature of the Last Thirty Years. 

The Supreme Court of the United States. 

Its Organization and Duties — The Lives of the Chief Jus- 
tices — List of Presidents and Vice-Presidents — Constitu- 
tion of the United States — Naturalization Laws of the 
United States. 



xiv Table of Contents. 

Chapter. 

CIX. The United States Navy. 

Its Old Ascendancy — The Invention of the Monitor — The 
Deterioration of the Navy, After the Civil War — Appoint- 
ment of the Advisor}' Board — The New Navy — Improve- 
ments in Naval Artillery- — Organization of the Navy De- 
partment — Sketch of John Ericsson — Uses of the Navy. 

ex. What's To-morrow? 



LIST OF ENGRAVINGS. 



De Soto on the March, 

Columbus Frightens the Indians, etc., 

Columbus and His Son Begging, - - . . 

Sebastian Cabot at Labrador, - . . . 

Meeting Between De Soto and Indian Chieftainess, 
"'Queen Elizabeth, --.... 

Last Voyage of Henry Hudson, 

Peter Stuyvesant Defiant, - - . . . 

Mary Dyer Going to Execution, 
■"Oliver Cromwell, --.-.. 

" Benjamin Franklin, - - - - 

Scene on the St. Lawrence River, 
'George III, -.-.-_ 

Sir Robert Peel, - - - _ . _ 

Death of Montgomery, - . . . . 

Signing the Declaration of Independence, 

Washington Crossing the Delaware, 

The Assault on Stony Point, . . . . 

"Red Jacket, ---.-.. 

Escape of Benedict Arnold, .... 

"George Washington, . - . . . 

"Maid of the Mist," 

Fall of Table Rock, 

"Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, . . . . 

Catching Wild Horses in Texas, 
' Henry Clay, -_._... 

Capture of John Brown in the Engine House, - 
" Abraham Lincoln, .---.. 

The "Merrimac" Sinking the "Cumberland," - 

Gunboats Passing Before Vicksburg, - . . 
'Jefferson Davis, - '- 

''James A. Garfield, ...... 

'^Grover Cleveland, ------ 

"Benjamin Harrison, ---_.. 



0pp. page I 
5 

19 

27 

52 



108 

113 
160 

248 

251 
275 
285 
299 

325 
329 
337 
352 
392 

417 
427 
441 
448 

453 
458 
478 
506 
564 
579 
585 
594 



r^O 




HE desire throughout, in the writing of this 

histor}', has been to record the heroic adventures 

and celebrate the picturesque incidents that make 

our histor}^ romantic and memorable. Such 

incidents as awaken patriotism and enthusiasm 

are those which are most worthy of preservation, 

and the influences they have upon the imaginative and 

generous minds of the young are incalculable. If some 

of the duller pages of the congressional debate and 

ineffectual law making have been neglected for these 

more brilliant chapters, it is not the young who will 

reproach us. 

For the minds of the young select with unerring 
instinct those things which are of actual importance. 
They read with passionate tears of the martyrdom of the 
devoted; they are fired with heroism and lofty pride at the accomplish- 
ments of the heroic, and they condemn with bitter contempt the 
intrigues of the mean, and the cowardice of the time-serving. To 
arouse the noble impulse, and keep alive the love for patriotism, 
fidelity, bravery-, and true holiness, has been the aim of the book. 

It contains little that is new; but it has been sifted from the best 
histories, and the latest ones. It is, however, the first book to record 
the events of the last ten }-ears, and these events it has tried to deal 
with impartially, unblinded by the conflict of parties, sects, or factions. 
If injustice has been done in any way, it has been unwitting. If it 
conveys, in understandable language, the most memorable occasions of 
our national histor}-, condemning and praising where condemnation and 
praise are due, then it has accomplished all that it aimed to for its 
young readers. 

ELIA W. PEATTIE. 



The Spider Web, Woodlawn Park, Ills., Jan. i, 1889. 



THE RIVER TIME. 

BENJAMIN F. TAYLOR. 

Oh! a wonderful stream is the river Time, 
As it runs through the realm of tears, 
With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme 
And a broader sweep and a surge sublime, 
As it blends in the ocean of years! 

How the winters are drifting, like flakes of snow, 

And the summers, like birds, between, 
And the years in the sheaf, how they come and go 
On the river's breast, with its ebb and its f.ow, 
As it glides in the shadow and sheen! 

There's a magical isle up the river Time, 
Where the softest of winds are playing; 

There's a cloudless sky and a tropical clime. 

And a song as sweet as a vesper chime, 

And the Junes with the roses are straying. 

And the name of this isle is the "Long Ago," 

And we bury our treasures there; 
There are brows of beauty, and bosoms of snow, 
There are heaps of dust— oh! we loved them so— 

There are trinkets and tresses of hair. 

There are fragments of songs that nobody sings, 

There are parts of an infant's prayer; 
There's a lute unswept, and a harp without strings. 
There are broken vows and pieces of rings, 
And the dresses that she used to wear! 

There are hands that are waved when the fairy shore 

By the fitful mirage is lifted in air. 
And we sometimes hear, through the turbulent roar, 
Sweet voices we heard in the days gone before, 

When the wind down the river was fair. 

Oh! remembered for aye be that blessed i.sle, 

All the day of our life until night; 
.\nd when evening glows with its beautiful smile, 
And our eyes are closing in slumbers awhile, 

May the Greenwood of soul be in sight. 



CHAPTER I. 



!H$bkn$ nnt ft^dar^. 



EARLIEST INHABITANTS — THE MOUND-BUILDERS— THE AMERICAN 

INDIANS. 




jHE plans of God are ven- wide. No 
nation may have the right to say, "We 
\^p are the people, and wisdom shall die 
with us." Traces are left of so many great and perished nations, that 
we are constantly reminded that a thousand years is but as a day in His 
sight, and that the work and progress we are so proud of may disappear 
and leave but little hint of us by which the coming race may guess 
what we were like. 

In the skeletons of the huge animals called the Mastodons and 
Mammoths, which once roved this countr}', and which have ceased to 
exist for so many thousand years, there are found flint arrow-heads, 
which must have been made by men who lived in that time, and by 
which these wild and terrible creatures were slain. Besides the many 
animals which belonged entirely to that age, and which there is nothing 
like now, there were many then upon this continent which we read of 
now only in foreign countries. The monkey was here in what we call 
United States, and the camel and rhinoceros. What the character was 
of the people who lived at that time it is impossible to guess. 

The first race which has left any distinct traces of itself was the 
Mound-builders, and it hardly seems as if they could have lived at the 
time of the Mastodon, for they made pictures of all the things about 
them, and among those pictures there is nothing which resembles these 
huge animals. This race of men was not savage, in one sense of the 
word. They worked hard, a thing which the savage seldom does. 
They had skill, and loved the beautiful. They are called the Mound- 
builders, because they have left behind them thousands of immense 
mounds; some curved, some square, some in the shape of a snake. 
Sometimes these earthworks have from fourteen to sixteen miles of 
embankment. Some look as if they may have been the dwelling-places 



6 THE STORY OF AMERICA, 

of their kings. Others seem as if they may have protected temples or 
altars where they worshiped. 

This people understood the smelting of ores, and mining. Their 
potter}' was far from rude, and their implements of warfare very 
ser\aceable. They buried their great men under huge pyramids of dirt, 
but the common people, to judge from the great stack of bones which 
had been found in parts of the country, were doubtless thrown together 
and left in the open air. At the time they lived, this country' must 
have been thickly populated. It must have taken millions of men to 
do what they did. No one can guess what became of them, or why 
they left the possessions upon which they had spent so much time and 
labor. They disappeared many years before the American Indians 
roamed through our forests. 

The American Indians, as the European discoverers of this country 
found them, were not the race that we know. They were said to be 
well formed, winning, gentle and trustful. They were gracious in 
their speech and friendly in their manner, with soft, brown bodies, and 
delicate movements. They had little strength for work, but great 
endurance in running. Here they lived, free as birds, without need of 
much work, with no cares, no sorrows except natural ones, until the 
civilized warriors drove them west, and ever west, setting an example 
of treachery and cruelty which the Indians were not slow to follow. 

FOR FURTHER READING. 

History— Squire and Davis' "Ancient Monuments." 

Baldwin'.s "Ancient America." 

Foster's "Prehistoric Races of America." 

Drake's "Aboriginal Races of North America." 

Jones' "Mound Huilders of Tennessee." 

Shaler's "Time of the Mammoths." 

"American Naturalist," iv: 14S. 
Fiction— Matthew's 'Behemoth; A Legend of the Mound-Bnilders." 



CHAPTER II. 



''\ 





$ 



THE FIRST DISCOVERERS OF AMERICA — MYTHS, LEGENDS AND TRADI- 
TIONS — ^JOURNEY OF THE NORSEMEN. 



TTlvE children, standing on the shores of Europe 
and looking toward the west, could make no 
guess at what lay beyond the water. They were 
told it was the "dark water," from which all the 
spirits and goblins came, things unknown and 
unnamable. The winds seemed always to blow 
toward the west. Even the mariners believed that 
it did so. If, by any chance, a sailor drifted out of his 
course toward the west, he was filled with alarm. It 
seemed possible to him that the waters might run off, 
somewhere, into a terrible nothingness. It is hard to 
tell which of the nations first found men courageous 
enough to cross these unknown waters. There are tradi- 
tions that the Chinese did so, and that these Buddhists 
wandered down to the California shore, and went deep 
into the country' that we now know as Mexico. There 
are traditions, too, that the Breton fishermen cast their lines upon the 
Newfoundland coast. It is certainly true that North American Indians 
have been met with whose languages were mixed with French. The 
Welshmen also claim that a number of their countr>'men came to 
North America and settled there. The traditions concerning this are 
peculiarly romantic. Two brothers, David and Medoc, quarreled for 
the throne of Wales. The younger gave up his right, and, fitting out 
a ship, sailed west. The next year he returned, and said that he had 
found a fruitful country. He called upon his friends to follow him, and 
filled ten ships with men, women and children. They sailed away, 
and were never heard of again. Five times in American writings there 
are references to them. They are described as a race of white Indians, 




8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

using many Welsh words, and having a manuscript copy of the Bible, 
in the Welsh language, with them. The last reference to them speaks 
of their living among the upper courses of the ^Missouri. 

But the journeys of the Northmen to America are well known. 
These Northmen were splendid seamen, and splendid fighters. They 
had been all over the known world. They had frightened even the 
great emperor, Charlemagne, in France, and had put their horses in his 
palace. Wherever they went they seemed to conquer, until at last 
they were driven from Scotland. Then, on the melancholy island of 
Iceland, they made their republic. Two-thirds of the year they lived 
in twilight. Books were their consolation, the sea their play-ground. 
It was no wonder that they went this way and that, wherever their 
fancy prompted, and wherever they felt they could fight with weaker 

men. They discovered Green- 
land, and settled a village 
there; then in strange, strong, 
if not fleet ships, went coasting 
further south. It was Bjarne 
Herjulfsen, with his crew, who 
first coasted — driven by adverse 
winds — along the coast of Nar- 

A VIKING BOAT, FOUND IN DENMARK. *^ 

ragansett Bay, Newfoundland 
and Nova Scotia. He went back to Iceland with the tales of what he 
had seen. "What," cried Erik the Red, a wild Norseman, who had been 
banished from his native country for murder, "you saw a new countr}' 
like that, with green fields and trees, and never put a foot on it?" He 
talked so much, and so long and loud on the subject, that his son, Leif 
Erikson, made up his mind to find out what kind of lands these were 
which were so much talked about. He bought Bjarue's ship from him, 
took thirty-five good seamen, and went far away to the southwest. 
They landed in Newfoundland, which they called Helluland, and in 
Nova Scotia, which they tenned Markland. They looked about these 
countries a little, gave them names, and sailed away, and were two days 
at sea before they saw land again. Then they sailed into a sound. It 
was a beautiful place. There were larger salmon there than they had 
ever seen, and grass, which looked wonderful to these men from a 
barren country. They found luscious grapes growing wild, grapes 
from which wine could be made with wonderful ease, and a German 
among them named it Vinland. We have changed the name very 
little. We call it Martha's Vinyard now. This was in the year looo. 




THE LEGENDARY CENTURY. 9 

When Leif Erikson reached home, his brother made the complaint that 
he had brought home much too little news. ' 'You may go in my ship, 
brother, to Vinland, if you like," said Leif, and thus Thorbald, in 
1002, went to Vinland, and stayed there three years. It is thought that 
the skeleton in armor, found near Fall River, in Massachusetts, in 
1 83 1, was that of Thorbald, who was killed by a poisoned arrow from 
Indians. Skraellings, the Norsemen called the Indians, because they 
were so scrawny, compared to themselves; and, indeed, there are tradi- 
tions, among the eastern Indians, of the great, fair giants, who had 
come to the eastern shore, which shows that there must have been a 
great difference in the stature of the Norsemen and the red men. In 
1005, the last son of Erik the Red started to Vinland, to try and fetch 
the body of his brother Thorbald. His ship was blown out of its 
course, and he never reached his destination. Then came Thorfinn 
Karlsfenn, with his handsome wife, Gudrid, and with them one hundred 
and fifty-one men and seven women. For three years they lived at 
Vinland, and, perhaps, built the tower that still stands in Newport, and 
wrote the inscriptions on the blocks near the Taunton river. The con- 
stant fights with the Indians decided them at last to leave their beauti- 
ful bay and go back to Iceland. They carried with them little Snorre, 
the first child of European blood born in America. Snorre was three 
years old when they took him back to Iceland, a little blue-eyed boy 
with golden hair. There are stories of other journeys by the Norse- 
men, in the years loii and 11 21, and accounts of their going as far 
south, along the Atlantic coast, as to what we now call Florida. It is 
believed that the Welshmen came later than this, in 1 1 70. The tower 
which stands at Newport, which is the only substantial monument that 
the Norsemen left of their visits, is low and round. It has two 
windows and a fire-place, and the cement with which the stones are put 
together is still strong, and but for the fact that the roof is gone, it could 
hardly be called a ruin. It is covered with ivy now, and serves the 
purpose of amusing the chance tourist. I/Ongfellow has made this 
tower the subject of his poem, "The Skeleton in Armor." Perhaps it 
was Thorfinn Karlsfenn who was his hero, and the ' 'viking wild. ' ' 

FOR FURTHER READING. 
History— Leland's "Fusang, Discovery of America by Chinese." 
"America not Discovered by Columbus." 
Bowen's "America Discovered by the Welsh." 
Anderson's "Discovery of America by Norsemen." 
Beal's "Buddhist Records of the Western World." 
Fiction — Ballantyne's "Norsemen of the West." 
Poetry — Whittier's "Norsemen." 

Longfellow's "Skeleton in Armor." 
Montgomery's "Vinland." 



CHAPTER III. 




COLUMBUS AND HIS VOYAGES — AMERIGO VESPUCCI — THE CABOTS. 

EAVING cloth or combing wool 
patiently in Genoa, there lived in 
the fifteenth century an Italian by 
the name of Columbo. In the 
year 1435 his son was born, whom 
he named Cristoforo. Perhaps the 
comber of wool in his dull shop 
used to dream of the sea, and the 
delights and freedom of it. There 
could have been little other reason 
for his sending the little Columbus 
to school, at ten, to study naviga- 
tion. At fourteen, this restless Italian boy went to sea, and from that 
time till he died, he never left it, unless, indeed, it was to draw charts 
for other seamen. He loved books, too, and read much. He read the 
books of great scholars, and it is more than possible that some of these 
planted in his mind the idea that the world was round — an idea which 
was to double Christian civilization. Christopher went on numerous 
voyages with the celebrated admiral of his time, who bore the same 
family name, Columbo, and it is thought he ma)- have traveled with a 
certain wild corsair, named Colon. The years between 1470 and 14S4 
Christopher spent in Portugal. Ever}'one was talking about the dis- 
cover}' of new lands. The Portuguese seamen were going down the 
African coast. Prince Henry was making presents of islands to his 
navigators, and he gave the island of Porto Santo, of the Madeira 
group, to a man named Prestrello. Columbus married the daughter of 
this man, and on the island of Porto Santo was born Columbus' son, 
Diego. 

It was not the children alone who wondered about the great, dark 
water. The Spanish seamen were vastly curious. It seemed to them 
that the earth was a flat surface, with this ojeat river of water running 



THE DREAMER OF GENOA. 



II 



around the land. Like the children, they were terrified by the thought' 
of what might be on the other side. A few scholars thought that it 
might be a sphere, but they never dreamed that it could be large enouo-h 
for more than one continent; so it seemed quite simple to them, that if 
it was a sphere, it would be possible, by sailing westward, to reach 
Asia — the land from which the luxurious merchants of Spain and 
Portugal brought their richest wares; the land from which the spices 
came, the silks and the inlaid work, the gold and jewels. 




COLUMBUS. 
The Yanez portrait, Madrid Library. 



Certain of these learned men, among them Toscanelli, the Italian, 
corresponded with Columbus. They drew up charts with his help, and 
laid out the plan by which one might cross into India, and Tartary, and 
Cathay. Columbus was a great dreamer, and these plans filled him with 
wild visions. He thought of nothing and talked of nothing else. He 
talked with sailors who had found pine trees washed upon the Madeira 
coast, where no pine trees grew, and those who had seen tropical cane 



12 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



stalks Upon the European beaches. He was restless and excited ; he could 
never keep still. He even went to Iceland, and it is possible that he 
talked there with the descendants of the men who had been at Vineland. 
Gudrid, too, had been at Rome, and it ma}' be that she left traditions 
there of the three years which she had spent in the beautiful country 
across the water. Though Cohnnbus could interest many people with 




AMERIGO VESPUCCI. 



tales of all he fancied, and all he hoped, it was difficult to win the 
hearing of those who could give him help. It is said that he went, 
or sent, to King Henry VII, of England, with the hope of gaining 
his assistance. It is almost certain that he tried to get the help 
of the King of Portugal, and it is possible that he sought the aid of 




Copyrtghl Jii^, fiy J!, s. K'niir Pub. Co. 

COLUMBUS AND HIS SOX BEGGING. 

Designed aiul l-ii -raved expressly for Tin-: Story of America. 



THE DREAMER OF GENOA. 1 3 

some of the cities of his own country, Italy. At last his wife died. He 
took his boy, Diego, and seems to have wandered about, in a desolate 
way, for a year. One day he went with Diego to the Franciscan con- 
vent of Santa Maria de la Rabida, asking for bread. He interested the 
prior, and the prior in turn interested a gentleman of importance, Mar- 
tin Alonzo Pinzon, and he carried letters of credit with him from these 
persons to Cordova, where the king and queen were. But King Ferdi- 
nand was busy, and it was a long time before he could listen to Colum- 
bus. For seven years, or at the very least five, Columbus hung around 
the Spanish court. The courtiers laughed at him, and Isabella and 
Ferdinand seemed to have little confidence in his plans. At last, a day 
came when Columbus was treated with such contempt that he burst 
into a sudden fit of rage, flung himself out of the court, and, taking to 
his horse, rode toward France. Isabella, fearing both that the kingdom 
might have lost a good thing, and that Columbus' feelings were 
severely hurt, sent after him. He was brought back, and in three 
months an expedition was ready to sail, part of which was fitted out at 
the credit of Isabella's own kingdom, Castile. It was not very strange 
that the sailors were afraid to go. How could they tell what they were 
running into ? They had to be driven to their task by force ; but 
at last Columbus left with three ships — the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and 
the Nina. The Santa Maria was ninety-six feet long and carried 
sixty-six seamen. It was decked all over, and had four masts — two 
with square sails and two with lateen sails. The other vessels were 
smaller and without decks. They all carried provisions for a year, and 
Columbus had with him an agreement signed by Ferdinand and 
Isabella, by which he was made High Admiral and Viceroy in these 
lands, and given one-eighth of the possible profits in return for the 
eighth of the costs which he advanced. Columbus hardly knew how 
to show his happiness. He vowed that if there were any profits, they 
should be used to free the Holy Sepulchre from the Moslems; so, with 
much hope, and many prayers, he left with his discontented sailors, 
leaving his son in care of the royal household. 

It was on the third of August, 1492, that Columbus and his men 
sailed from Palos. In a month they had reached the Canary Islands. 
After that they passed many desolate days on the water, with the sailors 
discontented at day and weeping at night. It took all of the tact that 
Columbus had at his command to quiet them. Once the sailors plotted 
to throw Columbus overboard, but he was keen and watchful, and, above 
all, a man of prayer, and his stern dignity of character held them in 



14 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

check. At length, however, he was obliged to tell them that he would 
turn back if they saw no land within three days. The anxiety which 
he felt can be imagined. Was it possible that he would be forced to 
give up his long-nursed hopes and forego the glory of discovery, and 
all because of a handful of fearful and ignorant sailors ? But the out- 
come was as strange as a miracle. In the morning of the third day, a 
sailor, standing aloft with his seaman's glass, espied land. The joy-guns 
were fired, to let the men upon the other vessels know of this wondrous 
fact. They sailed all day toward land. Anchor was cast over night, 
and the following morning they rowed Columbus to the shore, with 
music and waving banners, and, highest of all, the great flag of Spain, all 
red and gold. With him came his captains, with green flags, which bore 
the cross upon them. The island he called Guanahani. It is thought 
it may have been the island we call San Salvador, but this is not cer- 
tain. It was a flat island, with a shallow lake in the centre, and not 
especially inviting, so the men sailed on and visited Cuba, Hayti and 
other of the West India islands. He did not doubt but that he had 
found the eastern extremity of Cathay. 

He was not a little proud when he went back to Spain, and the rea- 
son that he stopped at Portugal may have been to let the king know all 
that he had lost, in not giving him a chance to find these new dominions 
for him. In Spain, he was received with much honor, and, when he 
started back for the new land, he had seventeen vessels and 1,500 men. 
On this journey he discovered the Windward Islands, part of Jamaica 
and Porto Rico, and founded his colony in Hayti. Hayti he called 
Little Spain, or Hispanola. In the winter of 1497-98, Amerigo 
Vespucci, a friend of Columbus, succeeded in some manner in obtain- 
ing ships, by which he reached the mainland of the new continent. 
Everyone was going to the "New Spain" who could possibly get there. 
All of the men who had laughed at Columbus before, seemed now to 
be trying to get as much of his territory and honor away from him as 
possible. Those who had sneered, "Look at the Admiral of Mosquito- 
land," and who had made light of Columbus' discovery because he 
brought home so little treasure, were, nevertheless, glad to start out to 
find what they could. If Amerigo made this voyage, as he said he did, 
he touched upon the mainland before any other Spaniard. In the same 
year John Cabot, a merchant, born at Venice, but living in England, 
also went to America, and touched upon the coast of Labrador. 
Sebastian Cabot, a son of John, a year later (1498) sailed with two ships 
and three hundred men. In his second voyage, he became persuaded 




Sl-:i5ASTIAX CAIIOT AT I.AI'.RAIX )R. 



THE DREAMER OF GENOA. 1 5 

that the land which they had found was not Asia. He discovered 
Hudson's Bay upon his third voyage. He loved the sea always, and 
lived upon it as long as he had strength. Meanwhile, Columbus, his 
mind still filled with visions, and believing that he was inspired of God, 
went upon his third journey. With his six ships, he reached the main- 
land of South America. Touching at his colony of Hispanola, he 
found his people quarrelling bitterly, and much dissatisfied with his 
government as admiral. He was arrested by Bobadilla, a Spanish com- 
missioner, and carried on board ship in chains. These he wore till he 
reached Spain, although his captors would willingly have taken them 
off. The chains had the effect which he had expected; the monarchs 
were ashamed, the people horrified. He was released. He wished 
then to keep his vow, to wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the infidels, but 
Ferdinand and Isabella would not permit him to do so. Then he asked 
to go once more to America. He was given four vessels, and took with 
him his brother, and his younger son, Fernando. By the time they 
had reached the American coast, Columbus was ill. He lay upon the 
deck, and watched the land as the ship sailed around by Honduras, for 
they had passed beyond the islands. He tried several times to found a 
colony, but the Indians were shy and crafty, and very naturally resented 
the invasion of their land. Two of his ships were lost. His crew 
mutinied, and no one would send him any relief. At last he went back 
to Spain, only to find his friend, Isabella, dead. He died on May 20, 
1506, with the chains he had worn upon his return to Spain hung by his 
bed-side. They were put in his cofl5n, and he was buried with the monu- 
ment : ' 'To Castile and Leon, Columbus gave a new world. ' ' About two 
centuries after that his remains were carried to the cathedral of Havana, 
that they might lie in the soil of the new world which he had found. 

It was better for his peace of mind that he never knew that the land 
he reached after so much suffering of mind and body, was to bear the 
name of another man. But, after all, justice will always be done in the 
Lord's good time, and, in the minds of everyone, America is the monu- 
ment of Columbus, and not of Amerigo Vespucci. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Prescott's "Conquest of Mexico." 
Biography — W. Irving's "Columbus." 

W. Irving's "Companions of Columbus." 
Dexter's "Letters of Columbus and Vespucci." 
Travels— Hakluyt's "Voyages." 

Kohl's "Discoverers of the East Coast of America." 
Fiction— Bird's "Calavar" and "Infidel." 

Wallace's "Fair God." 
Poetry— Barlow's "Colombiad." 
Ivowell's "Columbus." 
Rogers' "Columbus." 
Sir Aubrey De Vere's "Sonnets on Columbus." 



CHAPTER IV. 

PONCE DE LEON — THE FOUNTAIN OF YOUTH — THE DISCOVERY OF THE 
SOUTH SEA BY BALBOA — DE SOTO — HIS DEATH. 



F-^=i':^ 




HE islands of the Atlantic became rapidly peo- 
pled with Spaniards. "Everyone," complained 
Columbus, before his death, "even the very 
tailors, are bent upon discovery," and, as the 
islands filled with Europeans, the Indians were 
crowded out. The manner in which they were killed, and the awful 
sufferings they endured at the hands of men who called themselves 
Christians, is told most pathetically in the chronicles of Las Casas, one 
of the few friends which these unhappy people had. They were carried 
to Spain as slaves, or worked with cruelty iipon the new possessions in 
the Atlantic. The tender-hearted old man, Las Casas, made the mis- 
take, in his firm defence of the Indians, of advising the young king, who 
then reigned over Spain, to let each resident in Hispanola bring a dozen 
negro slaves from the African coast; and it was thus, in about 1518, that 
negro slavery was first introduced in America. 

Juan Ponce De Leon, a gay and courteous cavalier, who had been 
with Columbus on his second voyage, had made up his mind to go to 
the countries of the new world upon his own account. It was in 151 3 
that he set sail, with three caravels well fitted with men. He had been 
a brave soldier and a ver\' active man, and hated, as all such men must 
do, the thought of growing old. His ambition was to maintain his 
youth, and he was filled with the pleasant stories of some luscious 
fountain of clear water in the new world, from which all men might 



ACROSS THE DARK WATER. 1 7 

drink and become eternally young. He was made Governor of the 
island of Porto Rico, but even this honor would not tempt him to rest. 
He pushed on westward in search of the wonderful foimtain, and at last, 
on Easter Sunda}-, he saw land. The Spaniards called Easter Sunday 
the day of flowers, and Ponce De Leon named the new land Florida. 
He landed near what is now St. Augustine, and, with his men, went 
about the woods and coasts there for many weeks. Five years later he 
came back again, and was wounded with a poisoned arrow, and went 
sadly back to his countrv- to die. He had escaped old age, but not by 
drinking from the fountain of youth. 

Vasco Nunez de Balboa, an adventurous Spaniard, was the first to 
cross the isthmus which divides North and South America. Looking 
down from a mountain, he saw the great western ocean stretching before 
him. He called it the South Sea, and took possession of it in the name 
of his Christian Majesty, the King of Spain. Meanwhile, Cortez was 
exploring in Yucatan and ]\Iexico. By this time the King of Portugal 
deeply regretted that he had not accepted the services of Columbus 
when they were first offered to him. He grew envious of the rich pos- 
sessions of Spain, and fitted out ships in 15 19, under the leadership of 
Magellan, a sailor of wide experience, and a man whom the king counted 
among the greatest of his realm. ^Magellan passed the Indies and bore 
southward, sailing entirely around South America, marveling at the 
"mountain of fire,'' and rejoicing over the placid world of water which 
rolled in peaceful majesty before them. He named it the Pacific Ocean, 
because of its tranquility. 

The unhapp}' relations between the Indians and the Europeans grew 
worse, instead of better. The white man gave the Indian lessons in 
treachery, which he was not slow to profit by. A party of gentle St. 
Dominican Brothers, who had come to America to make a "conquest of 
peace" among the savages, were captured, upon their landing, and 
brutally murdered. It was too late for kindness to be understood — too 
late for the word of the white man to be believed. 

In 151 9, a planter named D'Allyon, a man of wealth and high 
famih', came to the American coast in search of slaves. He landed 
where South Carolina now is, and, kidnapping natives there, put them 
in the Spanish slave markets. His adventurous nature would have 
made him of much value to his country, but he fell a victim to his own 
evil works. On his second voyage he was murdered by the angr}- 
Indians. Eight years after this, an expedition in quest of gold was led 
out from the West Indies by P'amphilo de Narvaez. He and his 



i8 



THE STORY OK AMERICA. 



companions landed near Tampa Ba\ , and went westward along the 
Gnlf of Mexico. The sufferings of Narvaez' men were ver}- great. 
Their number rapidly decreased. They were restless with the spirit of 
adventure, and were not willing to settle down and wrench a living from 
the soil. Cuba put forward ever\- effort to find the men, but was not 
successful. All but four of them died. These four were made slaves 
by the Indians, and wandered from tribe to tribe for six years. They 
came out at last near the Gulf of California. But it was a long time 
before they were heard from. 




A Sl'ANISII SOLDIKR. 



Hernando De Soto held a grant of the province of Florida from the 
crown of Spain, and landed not far from the spot where his fated 
predecessors had in Tampa Bay. This was on May 30, 1537. He was 
very ambitious, and wished to found a great empire, over which he 
should rule. Blinded with ambition, he had no pity for any one. In 
all that he did he was fierce and shamefully cruel. Following him was 



ACROSS THE DARK WATER. 



19 



a splendid retinue of noblemen. They were tricked out in the most 
fashionable costumes of Spain, and glittering with inlaid armor, which 
recalled the magnificence of the crusades. None but a leader of iron 
will could have governed men so proud and ambitious. He took his 
companions through the lakes, streams and everglades of Florida. The}- 
lived upon water-cresses, shoots of Indian corn and palmetto leaves. 
Their policy was to fight the natives wherever they met them — an odd 
policy for men whose chief boast was their Christianity. Wherever 

the}' went, the}- left behind them 
burned wigwams and aching hearts. 
Once, De Soto was met by a certain 
Indian chieftainess. She was a grace- 
ful young savage, with courteous 
manners, and went to meet De Soto 
in a canopied canoe, carr}-ing gifts with 
her, among them a necklace of pearls, 
which she flung about the neck of the 
Spanish leader. But her people were 
used as slaves, and herself taken pris- 
oner in spite of her gentleness. De 
Soto still went westward. He sent 
men to explore for gold, and took all 
the treasures from the Indians which 
he could find. He went up the Mis- 
sissippi for some distance, and then 
westward, nearly to the Rocky Moun- 
tains. iVfter his return to his post, in 
tr}'ing to force an opening through the 
swamps about the Mississippi river, he 
sickened and died. He was dropped, 
in the silence of the night, into the 
deep waters of the Mississippi, the 
victim of his own stubborn pride, for 
he could have had help and rescue had he been willing to accept it; 
but he refused to take his men back, shorn of their fine trappings and 
lessened in numbers. A few of his men, long months afterwards, 
reached the settlement of their countr}'men on the Gulf of Mexico. 

The Spaniards in the north of Mexico were greatly excited when 
the four unfortunate men who had escaped from the expedition of 
Narv'aez reached them, with wonderful stories of the countries they had 




SPAXISH ARMOR. 



20 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



seen. Thev told of stately cities, in which there were buildini^s of 
stone and a great quantity of jewels, besides silver and gold in plenty. 
In a short time an expedition was sent to explore this country, going up 
the coast of California, and exploring part of the Colorado river. 
They found the well-built cities, but the gold, silver and jewels were in 
small quantities. Later, a Spanish explorer name Cabrillo, went up the 
Pacific coast as far as Oregon. Following him came Sir Francis Drake, 
the celebrated English voyager. The history of his exploits is not full, 
but it is known that he was received pleasantly by the natives, and, after 
a brief exploration, crossed the ocean to the East Indies. England, 
however, never claimed California on the score of Drake's discovery. 
In the year 1580, an expedition of travelers followed up the river Del 
Norte, and made a settlement upon the site of the present cit)' of 
Santa Fe. This expedition was under Onate. That city, with one 
exception (St. Augustine), is the oldest in the United States. 

FOR FURTHER READING. 
History— Parkman's "Pioneers of France." 

Parknian's "France and England in North America." 
Reynold's "Old St. Augnstine." 
Baird's "Huguenot F^niig^ration to America." 
Jones' "De Soto and His March Through Georgia. ' 
Fiction — Simni's "Damsel of Darien," "Vasconselas" and "The 

Lilv and the Totem." 
Dram.\— Mrs. L'. S. McCord's "De Soto." 
Poetry — Butterworth's "Dream of Ponce de Leon." 




WOLPI. 



CHAPTER V. 



1^0 J[Hb$ 0{ l^rHttta. 



FRANCE: HER EXPLORERS AND SETTLEMENTS — THE FIGHT BETWEEN 
FRENCH AND SPANISH COLONIES. 



ONG before this time, France was growing im- 
patient to have a foothold in the new world; so 
she sent westward a mariner, named Verazzano, 
with a single ship. He reached the shore of 
North Carolina, and followed it sonthward for a 
time, trading with the Indians as he w^ent. He 
carried home full accounts of what he saw, and a de- 
r^^P scription of the Indians and their ways, and said that 
\j ' ' these new countries were not altogether destitute of 
the ' drugs and spiceries, pearls and gold, ' for which 
everyone was looking." It was he who first gave an 
accurate idea of the true size of the globe, and of the 
western continent. France rested content with this 
triumph for some time, and it was ten years later before 
she sent out Jacques Cartier, who set up the cross of France in New- 
foundland, where the people, so he said, were the poorest in the world. 
In 1535 he made another journey, carrying the lilies of France up the 
St. Lawrence, and to the mouth of the stream which he named the St. 
Croix. The Indians received him as some great spirit, who could heal 
the sick and perform miracles, but he, like the S]3aniards, seemed to 
forget that he belonged to a Christian countr}', and though the Indians 
treated him with much civility, made a treacherous return. When he 
set sail for his own land he seized a friendly chief and nine of his tribe, 
and, amid the wailing of the amazed Indians on the shore, carried them 
away across the sea. It was little wonder that the Indians remembered 
these things against the invaders, and that when the French returned, in 
1540, and set up a colony near the mouth of the St. Lawrence, they 
found the Indians hostile. It was in vain that the Iving Frenchmen 




22 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

told them that the Indians they had carried over seas with them had 
been made into great men in the land, and lived in palaces of marble. 
The Indians had learned that one would expect nothing but lies from 
men with white faces; and the truth was that all of those proud-spirited 
Indians had died of broken hearts, except one poor lonely little maiden, 
whose duty it was to show herself at fetes for the curious French ladies to 
wonder at and exclaim over. Two forts were built to protect the new 
colony, one at the mouth of the St. Lawrence, and the other at the 
mouth of the St. Croix. 

France also started a colony far south. At the head of this was 
John Ribault, and with him a band of soldiers, seamen and gentlemen. 
This was in the midst of the great religious reformation of Europe, 
when the Huguenots had been driven in large numbers from France to 
Holland. These oppressed people decided to set up their reformed 
protestant church in the wilderness, and for the first time made the new 
world the shelter of the scorned and the outcast. So, with a sword in 
one hand and a cross in the other, staunch John Ribault led his band of 
faithful worshipers into a land where they hoped to find peace. But it 
was not to be. When the King of Spain became aware that the French 
had planted a colon>- upon this territory, he sent Menendez, one of his 
most formidable generals, to oust them. Rene Laudonriere was tempo- 
rarily in charge of the fort at Port Ro>-al, where the Huguenots were, 
and John Ribault was hurrying over seas with supplies and additions to 
the settlement. The fleets of Ribault and Menendez had some thrilling 
adventures at sea, in which the Spanish general was outwitted. He re- 
tired to the coast and founded the city of St. Augustine, the oldest city 
within the present boundary of the United States, older even than 
Santa Fe. Here men, women and children were settled. Amid music 
and the thundering of guns INIenendez landed, and kneeling to kiss the 
cross took possession in the name of Philip II, King of Spain. A few 
days after this, while Ribault was still at sea, a terrible stonn broke 
over the country, which seriously disabled his fleet. ^Menendez guessed 
tliat Ribault would not have had time to reach Port Royal, and 
saw that a safe opportunity for attack had come. Hurrying overland 
he fell u]K)n the French in the fort. The surprise was complete. The 
French were put to the sword. One hundred and thirty-two were killed 
that night, and in the morning ten of the fugitives were captured and 
hanged. Over these Menendez hung the label, "I do not this to 
Frenchmen, but to heretics." Among the number who escaped were 
the younger Ribault and Rene Laudonriere. 



THE LILIES OF FRANCE. 23 

Ribault did not know that Port Royal had been taken. He had 
been wrecked on the coast with his three hnndred and fifty men. He 
begged Menendez to spare them, and even offered a heavy ransom, but 
Menendez refused. Such as laid down their arms and surrendered to 
Menendez were butchered. Among these was Ribault. A few went 
southward, preferring to try the perils of the wilderness. In a few days 
the fort at Port Royal, which the Spaniards had re-named San Mateo, 
caught fire, and burned to the ground. 

Three years later, the French sent over another expedition, under the 
command of De Gourgues. His purpose was to be revenged upon the 
Spaniards. He made friends with the Indians, who were ready to join 
in any enterprise which would be likely to make the Spanish suffer. 
De Gourgues fell upon the Spaniards exactly as Menendez had on Fort 
Caroline, and left only fifteen of the Spanish garrison living. The 
soldiers upon the other side of the river were also massacred. The 
party went on to San IVIateo, which the Spaniards still held, and killed 
nearly all of the soldiers there. Those that were captured were hung, 
and De Gourgues put on the trees, "I do not this as unto Spaniards, 
but as unto traitors, robbers and murderers." St iVugustine was finally 
burned by Sir Francis Drake. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Jeffery's "French Dominions in America." 
Jones' "Antiquities of Southern Indians." 

La.s Casas' "Narrative and Critical History of America" in 2 vols. 
Parkman's "Jesuits in America." 

Schoolcraft's "History and Condition of the Indian Tribes." 
Fiction — Chateaubriand's "Atala." 
Poetry— Levi Bishop's "Jesuit Missionary.'' 



CHAPTER VI. 

J[ Jfabr^a in {\t li[ilb0rna$$. 

THE ENGLISH THEIR SEARCH FOR THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE- 

FROBISHER'S explorations — SIR HUMPHREY GILBERT'S 

SETTLEMENT — THE COLONY OF SIR WALTER 

RALEIGH — GOSNOLD'S FAILURE. 




=^^ 







6^r<:- 



T wa.^ the trlowiiig stories which the 
Huguenots told in the flight which 
some of them made from Florida to 
England, aftei the massacres, that 
induced the F^nglish navigators to 
secure that land. The}' tried to find 
the northwest passage, for which Cabot 
had looked, and in 1578, Sir Francis Drake sailed up the Pacific coast, 
plundering, in the wicked fashion of those days, Spanish settlements as 
he went. He went as far as Washington Territory. But no slight 
failure could discourage the English. The land for which they looked 
wore such a dazzling aspect to them that neither the loss of men or 
money could stop them in their search for the way to Cathay. Pictures 
of the wonderful country of Kublai Khan filled them with dreams. 
Here, .so they had heard, were twelve thousand cities, all near together. 
The estate of the king, spreading over ten miles, was a luxurious gar- 
den, watered with clear rivers and filled with the music of fountains. 
There were marble palaces, summer hou.ses indescribably beautiful and 
airy, wonderful armies of trained soldiers, and magnificent fortresses. 
From here all the finest silks, the brightest gold and the richest spices 
came. 

And yet, for all their attempts, more than one hundred years passed 
from the time of the landing of the Cabots before an English colony 



A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS. 35 

was planted on American soil. It was in 1527 that one of thxe futile 
attempts was made. Two fine ships set sail from London and went 
toward the northeast, but encountering a sea of ice there, turned back. 
Only one of the ships reached England. 

In 1536 the determined English sought once more for the mysteri- 
ous passage, but so ill provided was the expedition, that when the men 
reached Newfoundland they were reduced to killing each other that all 
might not starve. The captain, who had thought at first that the loss 
of his men was due to wild beasts, or to Indians, finally discovered the 
truth, and set forth their sin in the strongest words of which he 
was master. The miserable men stopped murdering each other, but 
it was not long before hunger drove them to cast lots for the choice of 
one who should die to save the rest. Fortunately for them a French 
ship, with plenty of food on board, arrived that night. The desperate 
Englishmen managed to get possession of the boat and put to sea, leaving 
the Frenchmen their empty vessel. However, the Frenchmen finally 
reached England, and were recompensed by the king for their losses. 

It was in 1553 that Sir Hugh Willoughby, a most valiant gentle- 
man, well born, renowned for singular skill in the service of war, 
started out with four vessels. They were well built and well provided, 
and one of them was considered quite a marvel of skill and strength. 
No expedition which left England went with more display. The whole 
court came to Greenwich, and the noblemen came running out to see 
the ships. The windows were crowded, and people looked down from 
the tops of towers. The shore was black with sight-seers. Sailors 
crowded the ships in the harbor. The American-bound vessels set sail 
amid salute after salute from the royal guns, but the cruel northern seas 
wrecked them as they have so many since. Two of them were found 
years later by some Russian fishermen, and in the cabin of one sat Sir 
Hugh Willoughby, with a pen in his frozen fingers. Scattered about 
both ships lay the bodies of the perished crew, every man of them 
frozen to death. The sailors tried to take the ships back to England, 
but they foundered at sea. But, though this expedition was so tragic, 
it was not absolutely useless, for some of the crew in one of the other 
ships reached Archangel, and traveled overland to Moscow, and com- 
merce between England and Russia was opened. This was of great 
value to England. 

England could not quiet her enthusiasm on the subject of the new 
world, and in 1576 Martin Frobisher set sail with his three small vessels. 
Queen Mary, leaning from her windows, condescended to wave her 



26 THE STORY OF AMERICA, 

hands to the passing ships as a farewell token of her good wishes. The 
first journey of Frobisher brought few results; one of them was some- 
what humorous. He brought with him a few black stones, which he 
had picked up on the island of Cumberland. These he gave his wife 
as a souvenir of his journey. She put them into the fire, and when 
they were taken out, they proved to be gold. This filled Frobisher with 
impatience to return. He started with fifteen ships, all of which were 
to come back laden with ore, and so they did, but the ore had in it no 
gold. Frobisher found the strait into Hudson's Bay which bears his 
name, and which he supposed was a passage into the sea of Suez. Just 
what these ship-loads of black stones cost England, it would be difficult 
to guess. In time, however, even the most saving forgot about that 
unfortunate waste, and another northern expedition was planned in 1585, 
under the charge of John Davis. Davis' Strait is all that serves to 
keep alive this vo}'age. Then came the scheme of Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert, a ver}- distinguished gentleman, as full of ideas as he was of 
braver>\ He sailed in 1583, with a fleet of five ships, and with a com- 
pany of two hundred and sixty men, among whom were refiners of 
minerals and mechanics of all trades. They settled, for a time, near 
the mouth of the St. Johns river, in Newfoundland, and set up a pillar, 
with the arms of England carved upon it. Indeed, there was more 
display than work, with the usual unhappy results. Many of Sir 
Humphrey's men deserted, and some died. 

At the colony at St. Johns, a conspirac}- was started to seize the vessels 
while the admiral and captains were on shore. Gilbert, therefore, found 
necessar\' to send home as many of the sick and insubordinate as could 
be spared. Soon after this, those remaining resumed their voyage. One 
of the ships was lost, but Sir Humphrey was still in a comparatively 
happy frame of mind. Had he not found ore which the assa}er said 
held silver? But the mines, or what he thought were the mines, proved to 
yield nothing after all. On the wa>' to England, the Golden Hind 
foundered. Gilbert himself was on the ship. It was the smallest of the 
fleet, but Gilbert refused to let any of his men stand a peril that he did 
not share. In the midst of the terrible storm, in which the boat sank. 
Sir Humphrey sat quietly in the stern with a book in his hand, and 
called out cheerfully, when the companion boat offered help: "We are 
as near Heaven by sea as by land." When Sir Gilbert died, his ambi- 
tious projects were taken up by Sir Walter Raleigh, his half-brother. 

No more channing figure than he ever figured in American histor}'. 
He was a soldier, a sailor, a statesman, and a most polished gentleman, 







■^ 




A LODGE IN THE WILDERNESS, 27 

a graceful poet, a historian and a thinker. He had sent numerous ships 
to America at his own expense, being very eager for England's glory, 
but the men on them offended the Indians by their bad conduct, and 
were always forced to return to England. Finally, he sent out a colony 
which he felt sure would succeed. It had as a governor a respected 
Englishman by the name of John White; with him was his family, many 
friends, and a corps of mechanics and farmers. John White established 
his company on Roanoke Island, and having settled them as well as 
possible, left for England to obtain more supplies. Before he left. 
White's daughter, the wife of Ananias Dare, gave birth to a daughter — 
the first little English girl born on American soil. White was gone a 
long time — a strangely long time, considering everything. When he 
returned the colony had entirely disappeared. It is true that they found 
the word ' 'Croatoan' ' carved upon one of the trees. This was the name 
of one of the islands not far distant, and it had been agreed upon by 
the colonists, at the time of the departure of their governor, that, should 
they see fit to leave for any reason, they would write the name of their 
destination where it could be found. But John White was only a 
passenger upon the vessel which visited the spot where the colony had 
been, and he was taken to the far south. Sir Walter Raleigh sent out 
ship after ship to search for the lost colony, but every captain found 
excuses for not obeying his commands, and the unfortunate people were 
never definitely heard from. After the gallant Sir Raleigh was impris- 
oned in the Tower of London, no one thought more about the matter. 
They were probably killed by Powhatan. Sir Raleigh has the distinction, 
among greater ones, of having made the use of tobacco fashionable in 
England, as well as having introduced potatoes to English tables. He 
himself never visited the North American colony which had cost him so 
much money and anxiety. The two trips which he made to America 
were to the mouth of the Orinoco river, in South America. 

The next colonial failure was in charge of Bartholomew Gosnold. 
He, also, started for the great extent of territory which Raleigh had 
named Virginia after the virgin Queen Elizabeth, and which included 
all the region lying between Canada and Florida. Gosnold' s colony was 
attempted on Cuttyhunk Island, but he and his company only stayed 
there a few months. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Buchanan's "History, Manners and Customs of North American Indians." 
Biography — Oldys' "L,ifeof Raleigh." 

Southey's "Life of Raleigh." 
Fiction — "First Settlers of Virginia." 
Poetry — Longfellow's "Sir Humphrey Gilbert." 



CHAPTER VII. 

I[aunbin5 ll^a ®lh J)nmiman. 

THE LONDON AND PLYMOUTH COMPANIES — THE VIRGINIAN SETTLE- 
MENT CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH AND HIS WONDERFUL AD- 
VENTURES — POCAHONTAS — THE NEW CHARTER — 
THE WRECK OF THE "SEA ADVENTURE." 



Vi^^ip^HE English king saw that it was 
necessary to take fresh measures 
if he ever wished to establish a 
successful colony in America. He 
therefore formed two large compa- 
nies, one of which he called the 
London Compan\-, and the other 
the Plymouth Company. The 
first of these was to go to the 
south, and the other to the north, 
and they were to build no dwell- 
ings nearer to each other than one 
hundred miles. It was evident 
that the king understood the 
quarrelsome nature of his sub- 
jects. Each of these colonies was 
to be governed by thirteen men, 
who were appointed by the king; and should any of them die, or resign 
their positions, they were at liberty to choose a man to fill the place 
themselves, provided that the man was not a clergyman. The king, it 
will be remembered, was James I, a man of much learning, though not 
of so much wisdom, for his learning was not of a sort which taught him 
kindness. In the summer of 1606, two ships belonging to the Plymouth 
Company sailed away from England. One of these ships was taken by 
the Spaniards, but the other one coasted off Maine and made a hast}- 
return. The general report of the captain pleased Chief Justice 
Popham, wlio made up his mind, on the following year, to send his 
brother, George Popham, and Raleigh Gilbert, a .son of Sir Humphrey, 




FOUNDING THE OLD DOMINION. 29 

to settle a colony; but they made no permanent settlement, and 
it remained for the London Company to make the first permanent 
village. In this there were one hundred and five men, and no 
women. Among them were mechanics, soldiers and servants, and, 
if the truth must be told, rather too many gentlemen. Their ships 
were the "Sarah Constant," the "Godspeed" and the "Discover^'," 
and Captain Christopher Newport was their commander. They 
were foolish enough to go by the old route of the West Indies, 
stopping along by the way in the pleasant towns of the Spaniards, and 
wasting both food and time. There were too many proud men among 
them for such a thing to be advisable, for they were certain to get into 
quarrels. The London Council had told them not to break the seals of 
their letters of instruction until they had landed on the shores of 
Virginia, so no man know which was greatest, and all tried to exercise 
authority. One of the most disagreeable among them was John Smith. 
This young man was always energetic and nervous. He wanted to do 
a great many things, and do them in his own peculiar way, and had 
very little patience with slower and duller persons, so he very naturally 
fretted at the wasteful way in which matters were being conducted, and, 
as a consequence, found himself suddenly arrested. It was in the lovely 
month of April when they sailed into the Chesapeake Bay, and giving 
names to Cape Henry and Cape Charles, went eagerly to work. The 
sealed box was opened, and the names of the council were heard. 
They were Bartholomew Gosnold, John Smith, Edward Wingfield, 
Christopher Newport, John Ratcliff, John Martin and George Kendall. 
They spent half a month in looking for a suitable place for their 
colony, and fixed at length on the spot where Jamestown still stands, 
and which they named in honor of their king. All of the council, 
except Smith, who was still in disfavor, were sworn into office. Then 
work began seriously. Try to imagine how they cut the trees and 
pitched their tents, how they split the logs for boards and made gardens, 
planting the seeds they had brought with them, and braided nets from 
twine. Imagine, too, how heartily they must have talked, laughed, 
sung and quarreled. They had been instructed by the council to see if 
an opening could be found by some river or lake from Virginia to the 
South Sea, and Captain Newport fitted out a shallop, and went with 
quite a number of men up the James river, toward the Appalachian 
mountains. The Indians received them with kindness, and fed them 
with the best that they had. The best was not bad. It consisted of 
venison, turkey, maize, strawberries, mulberries, dried nuts and tobacco. 



30 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

The returns which Newport's men gave for these dainties was princi- 
pally beads and whisky. It seems as if always the invading Christian 
was the first to do a wrong thing. One of the remarkable characters 
they met upon this voyage was a strong, manlike queen, who refused to 
be scared at the sound of a gun, although her braves were so. New- 
port and his men went on till they came to a great waterfall, and then 
turned back, noticing, with some fear as they did so, a change in the 
manner of the Indians. When they got back to the camp they found 
that several men had been wounded and one boy killed. A fort was 
built for further protection, and in a short time Newport set sail for 
England. While he was gone, those remaining at the settlement quar- 
reled frightfully. For one thing, they were suffering from hunger. It 
seemed as if the}- never had enough to eat. With game in the woods 
and fish in the rivers, why this should be so, it is difficult to guess. 
Disease broke out among them, occurring principally from the want of 
food and proper shelter. For, instead of building substantial houses of 
logs, they crowded into one miserable, insecure building. Each man 
had for his daily allowance but half a pint of boiled wheat, and another 
of barley, infested with worms. At last it became necessar}- for the 
president, Wingfield, to set aside such sack and vinegar as was left, to 
use in case of extreme sickness, and for the communion table. It was 
this action largely w^hich caused the liungr\' and selfish men of the 
colony to find fault with Wingfield, and to depose him from his position 
as president. John Smith, Ratcliff'and Martin were the men who took 
the principal part in this, and from that time on, John Smith seems to 
have been the moving spirit of the colony, although many of its best 
actions were suggested by Gosnold, a man very wise and pious. That 
any of the colony lived over that dreadful summer was owing largeh' to 
the kindness of the Indians, who brought them provisions. In the 
autumn, things went more peacefully, as the game became more plenti- 
ful and the harvests were gathered. Smith then went upon one of his 
journeys into the interior, where he came very near losing his life at the 
hands of some strange Indians. It is said that he tied his guide to his 
own body with his garters, and as his guide was an Indian, his foes 
would not shoot at him. At length, however, he was obliged to surren- 
der, and was taken before the king of the tribe. Then he displayed all 
of that matchless ingenuity which made him so interesting to all. He 
showed the Indians his round compass made of ivory, and explained to 
them the movements of the sun, moon and stars, the shape of the earth, 
the comparative differences of the land and sea, and told them of all the 



FOUNDING OF THE OLD DOMINION. 3 1 

sorts of men about which he knew anything. But notwithstanding this 
entertainment, the Indians tied him to a tree and were about to shoot 
him with arrow^s, when the king, suddenly conchiding that he would 
like to save a man who knew so many curious things, released him. 
The}' fed him so well that Smith became alarmed. He was quite 
sure they were fattening him before they killed him. Finally they 
promised him his libert}-, and even offered to give him some land and 
women, if he would help them attack Jamestown. But he told them 
of the great guns which the English had, and frightened them into 
giving up the plan. Then he capped the climax of their wonder by 
writing to the fort for a quantity of presents for the Indians, who were 
unable to imagine how paper could speak. At last he was taken to the 
greatest king of all, Powhatan, who received him with much state, with 
a young Indian girl upon each side of him, and rows of men and women, 
much decorated, around about. He was treated with great ceremon\- 
and distinction, which, however, according to Smith's account, ended 
in rather a peculiar way. He was dragged to a great stone, upon which 
his head was laid, and by which stood men with clubs ready to beat out 
liis brains, but at this ver}' dreadful moment, Pocahontas, the king's 
dearest daughter, threw her arms about his head and laid her face 
across his, to prevent them from touching him. His life was spared. 
The story is so romantic that there is a reluctance to doubt it, 
especially when it is remembered that Pocahontas was only twelve years 
old at this time. 

The little princess, Pocahontas, figured largely in the history- of the 
colony. She shocked the decorous gentlemen exceedingly by turning 
somersaults about the fort, but conciliated them by frequently bringing 
them food, and b}- warning them of attacks from the Indians. Years 
afterward she was baptized and re-named Lady Rebecca, which was a 
much more respectable name than Pocahontas, which means "Little 
Wanton," and was given to her because she was noticeably wild, even 
among the Indian maidens. In course of time she married John Rolfe, 
an English gentleman, who took her to England, where she was pre- 
sented to the Queen by Lord and Lady de la Ware. She sickened with 
small-pox just before taking the ship to return to America, and died at 
the age of twenty-two. No woman of those days has so extended a 
reputation; no other one has been so much written about. She is the 
subject of many novels and poems, and even the dullest historian has 
not been able to pass her by without some mention of her kindness of 
heart, her wa^-ward impulsiveness, and her beaut)'. It was not strange 



32 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

that John Smith wished to jniblish the fact that she showed some interest 
in him. Her father, Powhatan, has also been mnch written about. He 
was the most powerful of all the Indian chiefs of Virginia; perhaps the 
most' wily of them as well. He is described as being very stalwart and 
well-shaped of limb, and with a sad countenance and thin grey hair. 
So proud was he that he could not be made to kneel when the council 
saw fit to crown him after the English. manner. King James, of Eng- 
land, sent robes and a crown that the ceremony might be carried out in 
a king-like manner, but neither threats nor coaxing could make the 
disdainful old savage bend a knee, and it became necessary for two of 
the noblemen to press heavily upon his shoulders, so that his head was 
sufficiently bowed to suit popular prejudice. 

Meanwhile, vSniith was ha\-ing a most melanchoh- time. Several 
times he was taken captive. Once he was condemned to death by his 
own colony, because two Englishmen lost their lives fighting the Indians, 
under his command. But upon the very day when he was to be killed, 
Captain Newport fortunately returned from England, where he had been 
for supplies, and interceded for Smith's life. Smith was also stung by 
a poisonous fish when he was wading the creek, and was so severely 
poisoned that his friends had no doubt of his near death, and hastened 
to dig a grave for him, but this redoubtable hero unexpectedly brought 
himself to, and helped eat the fish that came .so near ending him. By 
this time, what with malaria, lack of food and exposure, the colony had 
been reduced in nine months to about forty persons, but Newport's ship 
brought one hundred and twenty men, besides a stock of provisions, 
farming implements, and of seeds. It seemed, however, as if good 
fortune was never to be theirs. Hardly had they got in better mood 
from Newport's help, than the fort was almost destro}ed by fire. Worse 
still, the company became wildly excited over some hills of yellow mica, 
which they supposed to be gold, and this fever of happy excitement had 
its re-action, which left them more miserable and despondent than 
before. Smith spent the summer in sailing upon the waters of Virginia, 
along the bays and rivers, and in becoming acquainted with the different 
tribes of Indians. On the return from the last expedition, Smith was 
made president of the colon)-, a position which he had always desired. 
About the same time, Newport arrived again from England with a 
second supply of men and pro\isions, and with him the two first women 
of the colony. Mistress Forrest and her maid, Ann Burras. It is 
unnecessary to say that it was not many weeks before Ann Burras was 
married. 



FOUNDING OF THE OLD DOMINION. 33 

Upon this occasion, Newport had orders from the London Council 
to bring home a himp of gold, to discover the passage to the South 
Sea, and to find the survivors of the Roanoke colony. It goes without 
saying that he was able to do none of these things. All of his ingenuity 
was bent upon keeping the friendship of Powhatan, and he was 
aided in this, to a certain extent, by John Savage, an English lad, who, 
for thirteen years, lived with Powhatan, acting as an interpreter 
between the English and the Indians. History says little about his 
youth, and, indeed, his name is the only thing remembered of him, but 
he must have led a very wild and exciting life — indeed there must have 
been an uncertainty about his life which, of itself, made existence 
interesting. John Smith had difficulty in keeping the colony from 
star\ang. He relied chiefly upon the Indians for food, for the colonists 
were too lazy to protect the stores brought from England, but allowed 
them to decay and to become infested with the rats, which came in the 
ships, and which, like themselves, found a settlement on the shores of 
the new world. Smith's greatest trial was in trying to persuade the 
gentlemen about him that they were able to work, for they would 
neither plant, fish, nor hunt, and would shirk, like schoolboys, each 
task given them. It is said that two of them did go to work felling 
trees, and worked so hard that the president wrote that forty of them 
would be worth a hundred common men, but they failed to keep up 
their labor. At length, the entire council of the colony, with the 
exception of Smith, was drowned. Smith then became more necessary 
to the company, and more important in his own esteem than ever. The 
way in which he slew Indian chiefs of gigantic size, and, alone, routed 
great armies of savages, is more like the history of some modern Jack 
the Giant-Killer, than of any ordinary man. The colony was in very 
bad humor. Sometimes members of it mutinied, and two Dutchmen 
fled to the Indians, and inspired a conspiracy with Powhatan for the 
entire destruction of Jamestown. Smith learned of their plans, how- 
ever, and brought even Powhatan into a state of humility. But for 
all of his bravery, the colony was steadily failing. The cost by which 
it had been maintained was great, and, in 1609, the king found it nec- 
essary to form a new corporation to sustain it. This was composed of 
the most distinguished and wealthy men of England, and a fleet of nine 
ships, carrying five hundred people, left England in the month of May 
— a month when England is most beautiful — for the tragic shores of 
America. Seven of these reached the settlement in August, but one of 
them foundered at sea, and another, the Sea Adventure^ on board 



34 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

which was the admiral, Gates, Captain Newport, William Strachey 
and Summers, also failed to appear. This vessel was wrecked off the 
Bermudas, in a storm so terrible that the description which William 
Strachey afterwards gave of it served to inspire Shakespere's descrip- 
tion of the storm in the first act of "The Tempest." "Such was the 
tumult of the elements that the sea dashed above the clouds, and gave 
battle unto Heaven. It could not be said to be rain. The waters, like 
whole rivers, did flood into the air. Winds and seas were as mad as 
fury and rage could make them." They passed three days and four 
nights in this dreadful strait, and, on the last night of their struggle, 
were cheered with a strange, fantastic light, that trembled up among 
the shrouds and stayed there till the morning watch. When morning 
really came, they found the boat lodged between two rocks, in still 
waters. The passengers and crew of the Sea Adventure spent their 
winter on the island. The climate was delightful. There was hunting 
and fishing, as well as plenty of berries and wild fruits. A few persons 
died, others married, and there were two births. One of the little 
children born there, in the midst of the Atlantic ocean, was named 
Bermuda; the other, a boy, Bermudas. In May, a year from the time 
when they had left England, they started once more for the Virginian 
colon}-. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Smith's "True Relation of Virginia " 
Campbell's "Virginia." 
Doyle's "English Colonies in America." 
Fiction — Hopkins' "The Youth of the Old Dominion." 

Moseby's "Pocahontas." 
Poetry — Hillar's "Pocahontas." 

Seba Smith's "Powhatan." 
Mrs. Heman's "Pocahontas." 
Mrs. Sigourney's "Pocahontas." 
Drama — Owen's ''Pocahontas." 

Seagull's "Eastward, Ho!" 
Shakespere's "Tempest"— ist act. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



FROM THE BERMUDAS TO VIRGINIA — THE STARVING TIMES — THE 

ARRIVAL OF LORD DE LA WARE — HELP FROM ENGLAND 

THE BEGINNING OF SLAVERY — THE FIRST 
BLOW AT INTEMPERANCE. 



MEN Sir Thomas Gates and his men arrived at the 
Virginian colony, the}- found things in a most 
distressing condition. Once more the people 
were without food, and were begging from the 
Indians. For one reason and another the Indians 
were becoming sullen, and were more inclined to 
fight than to give favors. Various smaller settle- 
ments were started around about, and John Smith, in 
visiting one of these, met with a serious accident by the 
explosion of gunpowder, which made it necessary for 
him to go to England. Percy became president in 
the place of Smith, but he was a character of a ver>- 
different sort. It needed Smith's overbearing deter- 
mination to control the men of the colony. Smith had 
been able to make the colonists work a little. Percy was not able to do 
this. What with hard drink and idleness, and all of its various conse- 
quences, the men were reduced in health and in courage. They 
had killed the domestic animals and eaten up all the supplies which 
Smith had seen to the storing of That horrible winter is known as the 
starving time, a name which is remarkably appropriate, for at the time 
of Gates' arrival only sixty out of five hundred were alive. These 
were hardly alive, and a few of them came crawling out to welcome 
Gates when he arrived. This was in May, 1610. No scene more 
disorderly and desolate could be imagined. The ver>^ houses had been 
torn down for firewood, because the colonists had been afraid to venture 
into the woods. Gates thought it best not to live in a place so associated 




36 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

with terror and death. There were two vessels in port, and Gates was 
possessed of two which his men had bnilt on the Bermudas. They 
boarded these and were about riding out of the harbor when word \\as 
brought them from Lord de la Ware that he was coming to their help 
with men and provisions. Lord de la Ware was chief of the London 
Company, although up to this time he had not himself visited the colony. 
It had been with much care that Commander Gates saved the block-house, 
where the people had huddled that terrible winter, from being burned, 
for the colonists, like a set of crazy schoolboys, were much fonder of 
destroying than building up, and if they could have had their way, 
would have set fire to ever^'thing in Jamestown. They had reason to 
be very thankful that Gates' wiser advice had been followed, and that 
upon the command of Lord de la Ware to return, they had a place to 
go into. Whatever these gentlemen of the old time did, they did with 
ceremony. They may have been ver}- ragged and very worthless, but 
they were always dignified and pretentious. The landing of Lord de 
la Ware w^as a matter for much ceremony. It began, as did all their 
demonstrations, with prayer. Though Lord de la Ware was so successful 
and brilliant a nobleman and governor, he bore always a spirit of true 
and sincere humility. He was, above all things, deeply reverential, and 
though he could be severe, he could also be gentle. It was the time 
now to be severe, and he determined there should be no more idleness, 
no more hard drinking, and much less playing of games among the 
wayward colonists. He began trading with the Indians for corn, built 
two substantial forts, and started various schemes, some of which were not 
successful. In a year the malaria, which had afiected so many of the 
colonists, overpowered him, and it was necessary for him to return to 
England. Shortly after his leaving Virginia, Thomas Gates and another 
commander, Sir Thomas Dale, arrived from England with fresh expedi- 
tions. They had not only men, but what was actually more important at 
that time, victuals and domestic animals. Sir Thomas seems to have 
understood, better than any who had preceded him, the economy by 
which a young nation should preserve itself To each man he gave 
three acres of ground, which should belong to him absolutely. He no 
longer allowed them to live upon the public stores. It became necessar}- 
for them to make their living, or starve. He insisted upon their building 
houses for themselves, and checked the disease which had spread so 
rapidly when they persisted upon crowding into one poorly ventilated 
shed. New settlements were made about this time, and though they 
were under the same local government, it extended the cultivation of laud. 



THROUGH DEATH TO VICTORY. T^J 

For the first time streets were laid out, and the plantations had definite 
boundaries. This progress was slow, but under these two determined 
leaders, it was sure. 

Stories of the wildness and drunkenness of the men of Virginia 
had been carried back to England, and the dignified members of the 
London corporation there detennined to uproot these evils by a set of 
laws. They must have imagined that the natures of Englishmen were 
very much changed by crossing the Atlantic, for it is certain that no 
Englishman living in their native island ever obeyed such laws as these. 
There was a penalty of death for wilfully pulling up a flower, a root or 
an herb when set to weeding. He who uttered an oath had a bodkin 
thrust through his tongue at the second offense, and at the third offense 
suffered death. If he was absent from the place of public worship, he 
was deprived of a week's allowance for the first offense, publicly 
whipped for the second, and killed for the third. No one was allowed 
to kill any domestic animal, not even a chicken or a dog, though it 
might belong to the person who killed it. A tradesman who neglected 
his business was sent to the galleys for four years if he persisted in the 
offense. It was evident that the great waste of money, time, oppor- 
tunity and supplies of which the colony had been guilty had irritated 
the London Company into making these ridiculous regulations. Still 
more severe than these were the martial rules, which each private 
citizen was expected to know and obey. 

For the first time the colony began to make some mone}'. It came 
from the sale of tobacco, and, for the raising of this plant, the cultiva- 
tion of corn was neglected. It was through the taxation of tobacco in 
England that the colony came to open its first trading with Holland, 
and the indirect outcome of it was the first quarrel with England. A set- 
tlement was finally made, but not for several years. From the extreme 
of idleness the colonists went to the extreme of industry, as soon as their 
love for money prompted it, and those who owned no land did not hesi- 
tate to plant tobacco in the very streets of Jamestown. England began 
to see that the wealth of Virginia did not lie in gold, nor its advantages 
in a passage to the southern seas. Tobacco charmed them, as the 
prospects of Cathay had bewitched them before. Men were sent over 
in ship-loads, and most of these men were criminals, who had been con- 
demned to serve out a term of years. Others were paupers, who sold 
themselves into this voluntary slavery for a given period of time, with 
the understanding that at the end of that time they were to become free 
citizens. Worse, still, so valuable did men become, that in 1619 a 



38 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Dutch ship came to Jamestown with a cargo of negroes, from the coast 
of Guinea. And thus the negro was brought under the American- 
English government for th^ first time. It was the beginning of slavery 
in the colonies of the new world. 

Perhaps it is hardly worthy of mention — of such slight importance 
were things of this nature — that Captain Argall, who was for a 
time governor of the colony, saw fit to destroy a little colony of French, 
at Port Royal, in the Bay of Fundy. The destruction of a few men in 
those days mattered but little, and even the historian would only think 
this worthy of mention, because it was ' one of the first outbreaks 
between the French and the English. Governor Argall set the example 
of greediness. He and his colony gave themselves up to a near-sighted 
plan of money-making, neglecting all those things which were neces- 
sary for the real comfort of their homes, and for the better mode of 
living. The distinguished Lord de la Ware was sent out to displace him, 
but he died on his way. Sir George Yeardley was made President of 
Virginia, which now numbered about six hundred persons. Their 
reduction had come from the same old mismanagement. There was a 
scarcity of food. To put them in better position, Yeardley gave them 
the power of self-government, and on July 30, 161 9, met the first legis- 
lative assembly in this country. It had twenty-two representatives, a 
governor, and the council. 

Here, the first blow was struck at intemperance. There was an 
enactment against drunkenness, making it a punishable offence. 

Three hundred members of the colony died the next }ear. The 
king determined to replace these men. He sent one hundred felons 
from the jails of England. Sir Edward Sandys, one of the most 
thoughtful, courteous and cultivated men in Virginia, did what he 
could to turn this mistake into an advantage. He founded a university 
at Henricho, one of the smaller settlements, where both Indians and 
whites were accepted as pupils. About this University were ten 
thousand acres of land, and here, in less than two years, one hundred 
men were settled. Then, a fortunate thing happened. One hundred 
English maidens offered to come to the colony, as wives for the young 
men. After this there were homes. Wherever there are homes, there 
is order. For the first time, it began to look as if there might be a 
new and prosperous England on the shores of America. 

Another thing that marked this year was the sending out of many 
poor boys and girls, from the overcrowded factories of England, to 
serve as apprentices in America. The.se boys and girls, who, in the 



THROUGH DEATH TO VICTORY. 



39 



conditiou of England, might have been doomed to a life of constant 
drudger}', laid the foundation of some of the best and most 
distinguished families of this country. Within a year 1,261 persons 
came to this countr}-, either through Sir Edward Sandys, who was 
treasurer of the company, or through private ventures. Sir Edward 
Sandys should be remembered by all who love books, and have 
enjoyed the blessing of a free-school instruction, as the founder of the 
first school in America, and the writer of the first book. This was a 
translation of Ovid, made in leisure hours, upon the banks of the 
James river. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Jefferson's "Notes on Virginia." 

Jefferson's "Old Churches of Virginia." 
Biography— Spark's "American Biographies." 
Fiction— Thackeray's "Virginians." 

Cooke's "Virginia Comedians." 
James' "Old Dominion." 
Defoe's "Jacques." 




CHAPTER IX. 



*]|animb5H, ll^s JpBHiiliful 



THE SETTLEMENT OF MAINE — THE VOYAGE OF THE ENGLISH — CHAM- 
PLAIN AND VERMONT — THE SETTLEMENT 
OF MT. DESERT. 




fiyJ-EANWHIIvE, there were settlements far to the 
north. Maine was a most attractive countr}' to 
the voyager. Its innumerable lakes and beautiful 
rivers, its magnificent coast, its hills and meadows, 
were all tempting. For three-fourths of a century, 
or nearly that, explorers had dallied about it, often 
stopping for a while and making insecure settlements. 
Not only had the English been enamored with it 
through all these years, but the French, as well, had 
loved to coast along its shores and explore its interior, 
and both nations had given names to its rivers and bays, 
its capes and islands. In nothing more than in this 
naming, was the different policy of the two nations 
shown. The English made the mistake of insisting 
upon the use of their own favorite names. The French used the Indian 
names, and seemed to bend to the customs and prejudices of the race whose 
countr\' they were invading. This was a ver\^ sure way of winning and 
keeping friendship. The French went further. They dressed as the 
Indians did whenever it was possible for them to do so; they hunted 
after the fashion of the Indians, and fished with Indian tackle. Imita- 
tion is the sincerest flatter}', and it could not fail to have its effect even 
upon a race of savages. 

Innumerable voyages were made by both French and English to 
Norumbega, which was then the musical appellation of that country, 
but no one ventured to put a king's name upon the soil or to found 
a lasting colony. The first actual settlement made in Maine was led by 
De Monts, a governor of the province of Spain. With him came Samuel 



NORUMBEGA, THE BEAUTIFUL. 4I 

de Chainplain. Both of these men had previously been to Maine upon 
expeditions, but this time they came with a charter from Henr}' IV. 
De Monts was created Lieutenant-General of Acadia, as the country 
was called, from the fortieth to the forty-sixth degree of north latitude. 
De Monts was a Huguenot, one of the despised sect, but he had given 
such signal service to Henry IV that it was decided to trust him with 
this important venture ; but while he was to follow his conscience in the 
matter of his own personal religion, it was agreed that the savages over 
which he had ruled were to be converted into Catholicism, The 
merchants of Rouen and Rochelle constituted the company which held 
the letters patent to the trade in furs and fish in Acadia. With De 
]\Ionts came certain distinguished noblemen, Jean de Vincourt, the Baron 
de Pontrincourt, and Champlain. These gentlemen were anxious to 
find a quiet spot, to which they might bring their friends and families 
and live in peace, undisturbed by the politics of the Old World. It took 
the expedition two months to reach the eastern coast of Nova Scotia, 
and a month to explore the coast. They decided to settle their 
colony on a little island in the St. Croix river. Their histors' is similar 
to that of the colonies who settled farther south. There were the same 
hardships, the same carelessness and lack of forethought, and the same 
suffering. Champlain coasted far to the south, taking in the innu- 
merable points of the bewildering coast, and turning up the mouth of 
every river which he came to. The Indians were not inclined to be 
amiable. Doubtless they had had too many previous experiments with 
invaders. So wretched did the condition of the colony become, that it 
became necessary, in the course of a few months, to move it to a harbor 
in Acadia, and here for several years it lived feebly. 

It will be remembered that the Virginian colony was sustained by 
a company which had its headquarters in London, and that this was 
one of two companies which the king granted patents to. The northern 
company sent out, in 1605, a fleet of ships, under the care of George 
Weymouth. The experiences of Weymouth and his sailors were not of 
the usual sort. They were delightful. They landed upon the pleas- 
antest of spots, and encountered beautiful weather. They found pearls 
in the shells on the beaches, and excellent clay for brickmaking, and 
trees whose ginns smelled like frankincense. The Indians w^ere friendly 
and hospitable, but the return made was that which could always be 
expected; Weymouth kidnaped five Indians, and carried them to 
England. The report which he brought to England hastened the 
action of the northern Virginia company in sending out that \'ain 



42 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

expedition of theirs, under the charge of Raleigh, Gilbert and George 
Popham. A few months, as has been said before, ended the existence 
of the settlement. Then the French made a second attempt. This 
was in 1608. The expedition was under the leadership of Champlain, 
who sailed to where Quebec now stands, and founded that ancient cit>-. 
He finished a fine, if primitive, fort there, saw that garden plots were 
laid out and planted, and then left the colony to its own industries, 
looking in on it from time to time in the midst of his many voyages. 

No more adventurous spirit than he ever lived. His story reads 
like a romance, and one of his adventures is too interesting to pass. 
He started up the great river St. Lawrence, with a few companions, 
giving names as he went to the tributaries. So appropriate were these 
names that they cling to this day. At the mouth of the Richelieu river 
he met, by appointment, a party of natives. These were on the war- 
path against the Iroquois. He went with these Indians, sending back all 
but two of his men. The light canoes were carried from water to 
water, and at last they reached the magnificent lake of Champlain, the 
only thing which this great voyager ever gave his name to. After 
several days they met their foes. All night they camped upon the 
banks of the river, taunting each other with wild cries, and in the 
morning the savages confronted each other. The two parties approached 
until they were within a few hundred feet of each other, then Cham- 
plain's party of Indians opened, and let the astonished Iroquois behold 
the spectacle of three white men. The well-aimed guns of the French 
wounded three Iroquois, and the entire party took to flight. After this 
battle, Champlain returned to Quebec, and lived there in some primitive 
state as governor. With one interruption, when the French yielded 
their possessions to England, he was governor until 1635. The little 
struggling colony in Maine, which had been planted by De Monts, had 
but a sorry time. As might have been expected, De Monts' authority was 
finally taken from him, because of the prejudice existing against Hugue- 
nots. However, he managed to get over in 1606, just in time to keep 
the discouraged colonists from starting for France. About this time 
Pontrincourt returned from France, with orders to make the new settle- 
ment a central station for the conversion of the Indians, and brought 
with him a number of Jesuit missionaries. These, and the missionaries 
that succeeded them, have been very prominent in religious work of this 
continent. The patroness of these voyages was Madame la Marquise de 
Guercheville, who was a very devoted member of the Catholic Church, 
and who later held the grant, not only of Acadia, but the entire territor}- 



NORUMBEGA, THE BEAUTIFUL. 43 

covered by the United Stc.tes. In 1630, she sent other ships, with two 
more Jesuits. These settled upon Mt. Desert, one of the loveliest 
places, every one will admit, on this continent, with mountains which 
reach down to the sea and lakes beyond the mountains, with valleys 
and grand meadows. Flowers of all sorts grew here, and berries, all up 
the green mountain sides, which reached two thousand feet above the 
sea. The Indians were friendly, and turned willing ears to the preaching 
of the priests. The settlement was comfortably established, when 
Argall came up from the Virginian colony. Without any warning, he 
opened a cruel warfare upon the peaceful people, stole the commission 
of their leader, and, under the pretense that they had settled without 
royal consent, arrested them. Many of them he took to Jamestown. 
Others were left to find their way in an open boat to Port Royal. 

FOR FURTHER RE;ADING: 
History — Williamson's "Maine." 

Lodge's "Eluglish Colonies in America." 

Voyages of Samuel de Champlain." 

Thompson's "Vermont." 
Fiction — D. P. Thompson's "Grant Gurley." 
Poetry — Whittier's "Norumbega." 

Whittier's "Bride of Pennacook." 

Whittier's "Mogg Megone." 




CHAPTER X. 



NOVA SCOTIA AND THE ENGLISH DESPOLIATION — THE SETTLEMENT 

OF NEW HAMPSHIRE — THE MODE OF NORTHERN 

COLONIAL GOVERNMENT. 

NSTEAD of disapproving of this cruel 
action, the Governor of Jamestown 
sent him back to the pleasant hamlet 
of Acadia, where the French had a 
settlement, so thoronghh- national 
in all of its characteristics that it 
seemed like a little piece of France 
set down upon the shores of the new 
world. None of the other colonists, 
then or later, accepted all of the trials 
which the}- experienced in an uncul- 
tivated countr}', with more bravery 
and jocularity of spirit. They were 
fond of dancing and all sorts of 
merriments. They built their houses 
neatly, sustained their church, rever- 
enced their priest, and from the first 
encouraged home industries. They had herds of fine cattle and sheep, 
and well cared for fields. All of these possessions Argall destroyed. He 
burned the fort, drove away the cattle, and putting all the i\cadians 
upon ships, with such of their worldh' goods as he did not care to 
confiscate, sent them away from the home which they had, with the 
Frenchman's effusiveness, already learned to regard with so much 
affection. Long years after, when some of the Acadians were very old, 
• they came sadly back to die near the spot which they had learned to 
love so warmly. 

In 161 4 Captain John Smith, who could not by any series of mis- 
fortunes be kept in England, came over to see what might be going on 
along the coast of Maine. He and his men were looking for gold, but as 
fishing seemed at that time to be as paying a business as gold mines, and 




CONQUEST OF THE WILDERNESS. 45 

as fishing was a bird in the hand, while mining was still in the bush, he 
concluded to lade his ships with a cargo of the best fish to be found 
along the coast. He carried home, in addition to this, twenty-seven 
savages, seized by his shipmaster, who were taken to Spain and dis- 
posed of there at a profit. But these were rescued by some Spanish 
friars, and finally returned to their native home. After laying the mat- 
ter of cod fishing before the English king and lords, he made another 
attempt to reach America in 161 5, but was driven back to port by 
storms, and history tells little or nothing more of him. 

About this time Ferdinando Gorges, who was president of the 
Plymouth Company in England, determined to send out a settlement at 
his own expense, since none of the companies seemed to second him in 
his aspiration to establish a successful fisher}^ The man whom he chose 
to carry out his plan was Richard Vines. So many selfish and con- 
temptible characters figured in the early history of America, that it is a 
relief to think of one man who was thoroughly good and noble in all 
that he did. Richard Vines was associated with no great discover}^ or 
conqest. He did not bring his nation any great wealth, but his life was 
one which ever^'one is glad to think of. He reached Sago Bay in 161 7, 
and found that a terrible plague had broken out, which was rapidly 
thinning the Indian tribes. Vines could easily have left and gone back 
to England, or to some other port, but he stayed among the plague- 
stricken Indians as a physician, and attended them constantly through 
all of their trials. Neither he nor his men were ever ill, although the)' 
laid in cabins where the Indians were dying with the disease. His 
work of exploration through this tedious winter was ver>^ careful. He 
made the coast more thoroughly known to the English, and ventured 
far into the interior. It is said that he was the first to describe the 
White Mountains, if not the first to venture among them. Another 
thing that distinguished him from other Englishmen, was the fact that 
he always opposed the giving of rum to the Indians. 

Gorges sent out other expeditions, which, for various reasons, had no 
satisfactory results, though one of his mariners discovered Long Island 
Sound. The Northern Company of Plymouth had much difiiculty 
about its charter at this time, not being satisfied with the relations 
which they bore to the Virginian colony. The French here put in a 
claim that the London Company was encroaching on the south. 
The Dutch had begun to creep in the slip which was left between 
the boundaries designated by the London and Plymouth grants. Just 
how all of this was finally divided up, it would be wearisome to 



46 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

write, and wearisome to read, and, since none of the grants were very 
enduring, it is perhaps best to pass over the geographical division. 

But one of these, the Laconia grant, given in 1623, should be 
especially mentioned, because from it came the settlement of New 
Hampshire. This was owned by Gorges and John Mason, and these 
two men sent over a ship-load of settlers, some of whom were fishermen, 
and others farmers, with a supply of food and tools. A part of this 
company settled at Strawberry Bank, which they named because of the 
beautiful wild strawberries growing rank over the fields. What was 
Strawberry Bank, is now Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The other 
party went up the river a few miles and settled the plantation of Dover, 
which was ver\' near the place where the present city of Dover stands. 

About this time, the English trade on the American coast had so 
increased, that in one year fifty ships came into English ports, with 
cargoes of various sorts, from America. 

The settlement of the Maine coast went on slowly. Many expeditions 
were sent out, which promised, in the beginning, to be successful, but 
the Englishmen seem to have been afflicted with home-sickness, and 
were fore\'er leaving their cabins on that stern coast and going back to 
their milder countr}\ A certain merry captain, by the name of Levitt, 
started a plantation at the place he called York, which stands near the 
present city of York, and many other men built similar plantations, and 
fishers scattered huts along the beach, which protected them upon their 
fishing expeditions. At this time, all of the Plymouth company was 
under charge of the Governor, Robert Gorges, the son of Ferdinando. He 
visited America, but did not like the country, and only remained a few 
months. It was not until 1625 ^^^^^ ^^e company from Bristol, under 
the patronage of Robert Aid worth and Giles Eldridge, came to Monhegan 
Island, which these two wealthy merchants had purchased. They also 
bought the Point of Pemaquid, and established there a vigorous colony. 
A little later, the towns of Biddeford and Saco were founded by Richard 
Vines and John Oldham. In 1631 Mason and Gorges divided their 
grant, drawing the boundary between Maine and New Hampshire, 
Mason taking New Hampshire, and Gorges such portion of Maine as 
belonged to him. Gorges offered to bring planters to his dominion, 
promising to give them land at a ver)- low rate, and, if they would consent 
to form a city or town, to give them such laws and liberties as they had 
enjoyed in P^ngland. His system of law-giving had in it a touch of 
feudalism, although this arose from its simplicity, aud not from any 
desire of Gorges to play the tyrant. He did more than any other one 



CONQUEST OF THE WILDERNESS. 47 

man in the Northern Company towards settling America, but his repu- 
tation had suffered, because he was thought to have prejudices against 
the Puritans, who by this time were clinging like barnacles to the stem 
rocks of Plymouth. 

More interesting to the present American than the details and dates, 
is the life of those early settlers. One likes to think about them living 
among these magnificent Maine woods, which already began to furnish 
the ships of the rich countries of the Old World with spars and masts. 
The colonists were poor, it is true, but their wants were few. People of 
all stations made their morning and evening meal of boiled corn and 
milk, or pork and beans, or pork and peas. They drank home-made 
beer and cider. Tea and coffee were not yet brought to this country. 
Their bread was usually of r>'e and Indian meal. They were not gay 
people like the French. They lived sternly, with rigid laws, and had 
a very high standard of morality. If vice was not punished with death, 
it was followed with such disgrace that the culprit had no longer any 
desire to live among his old friends. The laws here, however, were 
much milder than those of the other New England colonies, and people 
persecuted by the Puritans found that they could take refuge in Maine. 
On the other hand, there were disadvantages in being so close to Canada, 
for the French and Indians continually threatened the English colonies, 
and many Englishmen were carried captive up through that gap called 
Crawford's Notch, where the Sago river winds in creek-like narrowness, 
and which Richard Vines was the first white man to pass through. The 
traditions of Crawford's Notch are many and pathetic. 

The Indians had good cause to be bitter. There were acts of such 
wanton cruelty and contempt on the part of the settlers that the Indians 
would have been less than human had they not retaliated. At one 
time Massachusetts, fearing for the remote New Hampshire settle- 
ments, sent one hundred and thirty men to Dover to join the force of 
IVIajor Waldron, who commanded there. He desired to punish the 
Indians for some massacres of which they had been guilty, and gave 
orders to his men to seize all of the Indians who had been guilty of 
murder. He invited the Indians, who were disposed for peace, to come 
\o him under flag of truce. This was in 1671. He then drew his men 
up in line of battle, and asked the Indians to take part in a mock 
training. Anything of this sort suited their nature well, and they went 
at the sport with enthusiasm. At the command to fire, their muskets 
were emptied into the air, and then the troops closed around them, and 
took them all prisoners at the point of the bayonet. It had been 



48 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Major Waldron's intention to retain only those interested in the massacre 
referred to — which was not extensive, though ver\' heart-rending in its 
details — but little care was taken to look into the personal character 
of the Indians, and two hundred were sent to Boston and sold as slaves. 
It is no wonder that such treachery was punished. Murders among the 
outlying farms became frequent, and in 1689 Major Waldron's mock 
training bore its fruit. He had sown the wind and reaped the whirlwind. 
At Dover, there were five garrison houses, secure and well built. 
With such protection Waldron thought the people safe, and allayed the 
suspicion of some, who noticed the unusual actions among the Indians, 
by telling them to go back to their pumpkin planting; that he could 
attend to the Indians. One fair June day, at every garrison house two 
squaws asked that they might be allowed to spend the night. The peo- 
ple let them in. At midnight the squaws arose, unbolted the gates and 
admitted the Indians. Old Major Waldron, now eighty years of age, 
was sleeping securely in his bed when the savages entered, fierce with a 
pent-up indignation of thirteen years. His determination and strength 
had not deserted him for all of his old age, and he drove the Indians 
from room to room by the soldierly method in which he handled his 
sword. But their number was too great for him. They seated them- 
selves at the table, on which they had placed Major Waldron in a 
chair. The women of the house they forced to serv' e them. After they 
had eaten, each of the Indians slit some part from the body of the 
Major. His nose, ears and right hand were cut off", and when, at last, 
he failed from loss of blood, they held a sword so that he might fall 
upon it. Everything of value was taken from the house, and it was 
set on fire. Throughout the settlement there was a general conflict. 
Twenty-three persons were killed, and twenty-nine were taken to 
Canada and sold to the French. But it was the stealing of women and 
children from the farm-houses, the terrible captivity, the long marches, 
the strange and savage life, not unfrequently accompanied by torture, 
which held the people in the northern settlements in the greatest fear. 
The details of the various fights with the Indians are too sad to tell. 
There was no time entirely free from hostility, and, in 1690, when the 
Governor of Canada organized expeditions of French and Indians 
against the colonists in New England and New York, and the northern 
settlements, of course, suffered intensely. Traditions of great heroism 
have come down from those times. The endurance of the people was 
wonderful, and it is difficult for us to believe how much they could 
undergo and live. 



CONQUEST OF THE WILDERNESS. 



49 



The settlements of Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire have now- 
been touched upon. Their colonies grew very slowly. At one time 
New Hampshire was connected with Massachusetts in government, and 
at another time with New York, but finally, in 1741, it became a sepa- 
rate province, with a roj^al governor, who lived in great elegance at 
Portsmouth. Englishmen of great wealth and learning settled here, 
building substantial houses and furnishing them with massive and 
costly goods. The northern townships constantly filled with immi- 
grants from Scotland and Ireland, and, by the time of the American 
Revolution, New Hampshire was a very sturdy and independent colony. 

It was one hundred years from the time that Champlain first entered 
Vermont that the European settlers built there, and, until the time of 
the Revolution, it was not known as a separate colony, but was called 
New Hampshire grants. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Parkman's "The Old Regime in Canada." 
Beamish's "History of Nova Scotia." 
Belknap's "New Hampshire." 




CHAPTER XI. 



>]^0 Jlulrj^man txl Ifam llalJ^Brlnnh. 



THE SETTLEMENT OF NEW YORK — THE DUTCH; THEIR EXPLORATIONS 
AND SETTLEMENTS — THEIR DEALINGS WITH THE 
^ INDIANS — THEIR SUCCESS. 



the beginning of the seventeenth centur)' there 



were three European colonies established — none 
of them \'ery strong. This was when the French 
were still in x'Vcadia, the Spanish at St. Augus- 
tine, and the English on the James river. Spain had 
grown strong in Mexico and Peru, and in the conquest of 
those countries had gained enormous riches, but the other 
nations had received little return for the money and 
enterprise lavished upon the New World. Spain, puffed 
up with pride, here lost, by following a selfish policy in 
every direction. The Indians were being persecuted, 
the inquisition was in force and the Netherlands were 
being heavily oppressed. Great sums of money had been 
taken from the Netherlands, and a revenue drawn from 
them out of all proportion to their possessions. The\- were intelligent 
and liberal people, but were not allowed to have institutions of the sort 
that they demanded, and were treated more like slaves than a nation of 
great merchants and farmers. A most brutal governor was placed over 
them, and out of his cruelty grew the long series of wars, which finally 
ended in a struggle for independence. At the close of it, the Netherlands 
became one of the most vigorous nations of Europe, and a refuge for all 
who were oppressed in other countries. Everj'one knows how the>- 
seemed to snatch their lands from the very arms of the ocean. Their 
fanns flourished with wonderful luxuriance. Their cities became 
leading commercial cities of the world, and their d}kes barred the 
ocean from their possessions, only admitting it when it could aid them. 
The East India trade, which for so man)- years was one of the chief 




THE DUTCHMEN OF NEW NETHERLAND. 5I 

sources of income to Europe, was almost monopolized by them, and 
they had the sole right to send trading vessels around the Cape of 
Good Hope and through the Straits of Magellan. They also established 
a company for the purpose of trading at the West Indies, though for 
sometime this was not successful. As their interests were so associated 
with those of the East Indies, they, as well as other nations, had looked 
for that never-to-be-found northwest passage. The voyages which they 
sent out were many, but all of them failed. At last their little country, 
which gave out such wonders of wealth, seemed to be cultivated almost 
to its last acre, and they began to turn their eyes toward the New World. 
They had watched the English voyages with much interest, and had 
heard of the skill of a certain navigator, Henry Hudson, who had been 
employed in one of these expeditions. For this man they sent, and 
signed a contract with him which was to give him a certain sum of 
gold for his family during his absence, and to give his widow a sum of 
money in the event of his death, if he would search to the best of his 
ability for the pathway to India. On Saturday, the 4th of April, 1609, 
Hudson sailed from Amsterdam, on the Half Moon. His crew was 
composed of English and Dutch sailors — rather an unfortunate combina- 
tion. The Half Moon went up the Norway coast toward North Cape, 
and toward Nova Zembla; but so crowded was the sea with jangling 
bergs and floating cakes of ice, and so impatient was his crew, that he 
was obliged to turn back. Acting upon their advice, he concluded to 
sail westward, and, reaching the American coast, to search for the 
possibility of an opening, by way of a river, to the desired Indian sea. 
He anchored in Penobscot Bay on July i8th, and remained there 
several days, while his crew repaired the vessel. They treated the 
Indians in a murderous way, and found it necessary to leave the bay in 
haste. He went close to the entrance of Chesapeake Bay, but did 
not visit his friends at Jamestown, perhaps because he did not wish 
to be seen in the service of another country. He turned northward 
again, and coasted until the 2d of September, when he reached a most 
beautiful bay, and saw the hills of Neversink to the northward. The 
men were delighted with the wonderful harbor that lay before them, 
and passed beyond Sandy Hook, up into the Narrows. The small boats 
were put out to explore and fish, and on the 4th of August the first 
European stepped upon Coney Island. Finally the strait beyond the 
Narrows was explored, and grassy shores, pleasant flowers and goodly 
trees were all examined. They had a disastrous encounter with the 
Indians, who killed one of the sailors and wounded two others, and 



52 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

then Hudson decided to push his boat up the great river which opened 
before him. It was in the midst of August, and oppressively hot, though 
clear. 

It can easily be imagined that the hills of Staten Island and all those 
wonderful woods of Long Island were at their best. The boat went up 
with the tide, anchoring at night. The Indians were much delighted 
with the novel sight, and crowded out to the ship, bringing corn and 
tobacco with them. Nearly two centuries of civilization have not been 
able to spoil the Hudson, but one can guess that it must have been even 
more majestic then than now. So silent was it, so wild and rugged, 
that the sailors were awe-stricken as their boat turned slowly up the 
stream, and floated by the wooded hills and the Palisades to the High- 
lands. At length the stream got too narrow for the Half Moon to go 
farther, and Hudson was obliged to content himself by sending portions 
of his crew, in small boats, as far as the present site of Albany. With 
much regret, he was forced to believe that this was only a river running 
north, through which he could hope to find no opening to India. It 
was then that Hudson gave to certain Indian chiefs, with whom he had 
had pleasant trading, the banquet which lived in Indian tradition one 
hundred years, and which even the Dutch settlers along the banks of 
the Hudson have been glad to relate of Hendrick Hudson and his merry 
crew. The Indians saw him depart with much regret, for he had 
furnished them with a very novel excitement; but it seemed as if Euro- 
peans were never to visit this country without being guilty of some act 
of great injustice to the natives. Hudson's men did not leave the 
beautiful "River by the Mountains," as they called it, without brutally 
killing a couple of Indians. The affair led to a general fight. Hudson 
started for Holland, but stopped at Dartmouth harbor, in England, and 
was held there by the English government, which saw that it had made 
a mistake in letting a man of such ability pass into the employ of a 
foreign nation. He was retained in the service of the Moscovy 
Company, for which he had previously sailed, and in 1610, made that 
last fatal voyage to the northwest, when he discovered the ba\- which 
bears his name. There among that white and desolate waste his men 
mutinied, tied him hand and foot and threw him on board a boat, with 
his son and a few companions. No one ever heard of him afterwards, 
but the little children living up among the highlands on the Hudson 
river still say, when the thunder rolls, "There are Hendrick Hudson and 
his crew playing nine-pins among the hills." 

Holland did not seem to be especially interested in Hudson's 



THE DUTCHMEN OF NEW NETHERLAND. 53 

discoveries. It was not anxious, like Spain and England, for great 
territorial possessions. Since it could not have the northwest passage, 
i1 cared little about America and her virgin soil. But, though the 
government was indiflferent to the matter, certain private merchants 
thought they saw a way to make much money, by exchanging trifles 
for costly furs. The experiment worked well, and, in a short time, a 
very brisk trade had sprung up between the Indians and the Dutch ; the 
funny little vessels of the Hollanders going along the coast and up the 
streams, visiting the Indian hamlets and giving a few beads, or some 
other such trumper}-, in exchange for beautiful skins. A sort of fort 
and store-house was built on Manhattan Island, as a station for their 
wares. The Netherland merchants soon saw that they had struck a 
good thing, and began to push their territor}^ north and south. 
Incidentally, they added some fresh discoveries to the few which their 
country had made. Among the captains distinguished in these discov- 
eries were Hendrick Christaensen, Adriaen Block and Cornells Jacob- 
sen May. Adriaen Block was the first European to pass through Hurl- 
gate. This was in 1614. He, too, discovered and named the rocky 
little island which raises its head fifteen miles out of the New York 
harbor, and which bears his name to this day. He spent the winter of 
i6i3-i4on Manhattan Island, having lost his ship, the Tiger, by fire, 
and finding it necessary to build another. This he named the O^iriist, 
meaning the restless. It was he who first traversed Long Island 
Sound and sailed up the Connecticut river. He went along the New 
England coast as far as Nahant, and called that the limit of New 
Netherland. He entered the blue Narragansett Bay, and saw there the 
red island, or Roode Island, as he called it, from which our State of 
Rhode Island takes its name. Cape May was named after Captain May. 
Hendrick Christaensen built the first great trading post up the Hudson 
river, on Castle Island, close by Albany. He was an excellent agent, of 
adventurous spirit, and was rapidly acquiring power and wealth, when 
he was killed by an Indian whom he had taken on a voyage to Holland, 
but had safely restored to his home. His position as Governor was 
taken by Jacob Eelkens. Out of the many Dutch navigators, these 
three men are especially remembered for their faithful services to 
Holland. 

The merchants who had first opened trade about Manhattan and the 
Hudson became alarmed at the number who had followed their example, 
and succeeded in getting an ordinance to protect themselves. In this 
charter the name of New Netherland was officially given to that strip 



54 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

of land .vhicli lay between the 40th and 45 th degrees, and which had 
the London Company upon one side and the Plymouth Company on the 
other. This was four years from the time that Hendrick Hudson's 
men pushed the Half Moon into the Narrows. The merchants desired 
that this be given them for a term of three years, for they saw nothing 
in the venture except chances for successful trade. They were satisfied 
with their own, which, indeed, was the most advanced of the age, and, 
having no desire to settle on their new possessions, merely wished to 
get what wealth they could out of it. Their trading grounds extended 
widely, and their relations with the Indians were friendly. The shores 
of Delaware Bay and river were explored, and the trade for seal skins 
opened with the natives. They went as far south as the cape they named 
Henlopen, and wished to have a charter for the ground to this limit, 
but the Repiiblic of Holland was afraid that it might be an encroach- 
ment upon the bounds of Virginia, and refused. The trading post on 
Castle Island was moved to a safer spot, where the SDring freshets could 
not disturb it, and put in a more secure building. i\\ 161 8, the charter 
for which the Holland merchants had asked expired, but they continued 
to trade with much the same freedom as before, and with so overbear- 
ing a policy that few ventured to trespass upon the ground which 
they claimed. So, in 1621, the West India Company, which had 
never really done anything previous to this, secured a charter which 
gave it great power. Among other things, its authority over the 
Dutch territory in America was absolute. It h^d a right to appoint all 
of the governing officers, and to rule with what laws it chose. It was 
to build forts, and to insure the protection of its own possessions. It had 
a board of nineteen delegates in the brave little country at home, and 
these ruled the great stretch of land by the Hudson. Thirty-two ves- 
sels-of-war and eighteen armed yachts were at the service of the com- 
pany, in case it needed protection. 

The first ship which went over with settlers was in 1623. O" ^^^^ 
was a large company of Walloons. These Walloons were not Dutch- 
men, but Frenchmen, who had been driven from their home on account 
of their religion, to find a settlement in free Holland, for in France 
they had been treated in a most cruel and relentless manner. They 
were a class quite by themselves, and had kept, for many generations, 
their old French words and customs, so that they neither belonged to 
France of that day nor to any other country. They were quite 
distinguished for their mechanical cleverness, and for their saving 
industr}^'. It is easy to see how such people should have an ambition to 



THE DUTCHMEN OF NEW NETHERLAND. 55 

enter a country which they could call their own, and the West India 
directors, hearing of this aspiration, made them offers which they 
accepted. They sailed under Captain Cornells Jacobsen May, and 
settled on the site of Albany, In a short time they had a group of 
comfortable bark houses, a goodly field of corn, and a pier, at which 
the round-prowed vessels of the Dutch could anchor. A part of the 
Walloons, and of the New Netherland passengers also, settled at Fort 
Orange. Some went to the north of the Connecticut river, and others 
to the western end of Long Island, A fort was built on the South 
river, and a trading establishment on Manhattan Island, So the Dutch 
now traded peaceably along the coast of the New Netherlands, and, 
being thrifty people, w^ho were willing to treat the Indians with fair- 
ness, and with a love for buying and selling, they soon became quite 
prosperous. The Dutch settlements had three different governors 
during this period of its existence, the last of whom, Peter Minuet, 
succeeded, after a series of successes and mistakes, in making Man- 
hattan the central point of interest. The first pictures of this are 
ver>' curious. They show groups of new buildings of wood and bark, 
and Fort Amsterdam, with its quadrangular stone walls, and a great, 
awkward Dutch wind-mill, which the ships in the harbor dwarfed to 
insignificant size. Under Peter Minuet, the colonists tried to come to 
an understanding with the Plymouth Company, but, though many 
courtesies were exchanged on both sides, the English frankly said that 
they considered the Dutch intruders. 

A great need was felt for some more substantial scheme of govern- 
ment. It was evident that the Dutch were not sufficiently interested in 
the country to which they had come, and that it was a mistake to take 
all of the products to Holland and bring so few in return. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Dunlap's "History of New Netherlands." 

Barnes' "Early History of Albany." 

Clute's "Annals of Staten Island." 
Fiction — Irving-'s "Knickerbocker History." 

Irving's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." 

Mrs. H. F. Parker's "Constance Aylmer." 



CHAPTER XII 



i|b ia^B 



autar. 



THE PURITANS — THEIR TRIALS AND WANDERINGS — THE LANDING AT 
PLYMOUTH ROCK — THE FIRST WINTER. 



NOVELIST feels at liberty to go from one 
place to another, tli^it he may keep the 
reader advised as to what all his characters 
are doing, in different places, and under 
different circumstances. Histor}', like 
fiction, forces the writer to constantly go 
back, and reach his Rome by another road. 
The Dutch had become well acquainted 
with what we call New York before the 
greatest of all the colonies was settled, 
that of Plymouth. No other colony has 
such a fascination for the American 
reader. No other seemed to hold in it, 
to such an extent, the elements which 
went to make up the best in our 
republic. These people, as well as the 
settlers of Manhattan, came from Holland, 
though they were Englishmen. For 
years the Puritans had been persecuted in England. The cause for 
their persecution was, that they objected to the ritual of the Church of 
England, and desired to have a simple gospel, with unpretentious 
teachings. They did not believe in what they called the Anti-Christian 
greatness and tyrannical power of the established church. This frame of 
mind was an offshoot of the Reformation. James I had no patience with 
these Puritans. He boasted of having peppered them soundly, and was 
well pleased with any one of his magistrates, or sheriffs, who persecuted 
them. They were scattered throughout England, and existed in large 
numbers in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Nottinghamshire. They were 
inspired by certain simple orators, who had a remarkable gift of 
eloquence. Almost all of the Puritans were )eomen, simple, sturdy 




THE MAYFLOWER. 



57 



folk, direct of speech, and strong of muscle. They were acquainted 
with no luxuries, although they seemed to have had enough money to 
enable them to emigrate to another country, when they found that they 
could no longer live, in liberty, in their own. They were not without 
education, and one of their chief ambitions was to send their sons to 
the universities. Being educated, they were all the more detennined 
to protect their rights, and to insist upon being allowed to worship after 
their own manner; therefore, when they were hunted and imprisoned, 
their houses beset with spies, and their means of livelihood taken from 
them, they decided to leave England. In this, Brewster, their leader, a 
man of much experience, who had been a successful courtier and an office- 
holder under the government, sustained them. But though the English 
did not wish them within their neighborhood, neither did they seem to 
wish them to leave. It may have been, merely, that they never allowed 
them to do anything they wanted to do. On several occasions, when 
the Puritans had secured means of reaching Holland, where they 
understood ever}^ one was allowed to follow his own faith, they were 
detained by mobs of people and brought back, to suffer the jeers and 
cruelties of the hard-hearted people about them. Imprisonment was 
the general punishment for any such attempt to escape. At length 
they engaged a Dutch ship to take them on board, at a quiet place 
between Hull and Grimsby. They gathered from various directions, 
with all of their goods which they could carry, and were waiting there 
when a mob of country people, armed with all sorts of rude weapons, 
rushed upon them. A boat load of Puritan men had been taken to the 
ship, and these had to witness the cruelty with which their wives and 
children and the small force of men left on shore were treated. The ship- 
master of the Dutch ship, frightened at what he saw, set sail, and 
carried the despairing men out to sea. The greater part of the 
unfortunate Puritans who were left on shore were arrested. After this 
their experiences were most pitiful. No magistrate seemed willing 
to decide upon their case, and they were driven from one place to 
another, until their money was exhausted, and all of their goods lost. 
Finally, some people of note and money were moved by their pathetic 
condition, and secured means by which they reached Holland, where 
they were united with their friends. In the midst of opulent Holland 
they succeeded, in spite of their simple ways and meagre experiences, 
»in earning a living, and were always treated with kindness and 
consideration by the Dutch. But as time passed on, they felt it a pity 
that their English children should grow up in the midst of Dutch 



58 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

surroundings, learning a foreign language and strange, un-English 
ways. It is not strange that the reports of America delighted them. 
They believed it to be a land where they would have fewer difficulties 
to struggle with, and where they might find an Eldorado where gold 
was plenty and ease ensured. They corresponded, therefore, with 
some of the leading men of Jamestown, especially with Sir Edward 
Sandys, who had been a friend of Brewster }'ears before. 

He probably advised them to obtain a patent, for they sent two of 
their most trusty men, Robert Cushman and John Carver, to England 
to see if the king would grant them one. After many delays and much 
evasion on the part of the king, they got one, although it was never 
used. It was a grant of land somewhere near the mouth of the Hudson 
river, and the Puritans, who were under obligations to the Dutch, 
probably did not feel as if they cared to infringe upon their trading 
ground. Holland offered them its protection, but this also was refused, 
being unwilling to vex their native countrymen, the English. It will 
«be seen that they were very war\- and discreet people, anxious to be at 
peace with everyone. 

In the month of July, 1620, at the Puritan Church in Leyden, 
Holland, the good pastor, Robinson, held a day of prayer, singing many 
psalms and feasting. The last night they spent with their friends in a 
long, long talk, and in the morning departed very sorrowfully, with 
many tears, from the spot which had been their dwelling-place for twelve 
years. The two ships, the Speedwell and Mayflozver^ carried one 
hundred and twenty people from Southampton, on August 5th, but the 
speedwell proved unseaworthy, and the Mayfloiver finally went alone, 
carrying one hundred and two persons for the new colony, besides the 
crew. The ship was not strong, and half way across the ocean they 
were on the point of returning, but prayerfully decided to go on, and, 
on the 9th of November, saw Cape Cod. They cast anchor in the 
harbor, where they could be free from the winds, and a few of them 
went on shore, where they fell upon their knees and thanked God for 
the perils which they had escaped, and for the new life which was 
opening before them. More than a month was spent in looking for a 
spot where they might settle. During this time they made a compact 
of government, in which it was agreed that they should bind themselves 
into a civil body politic for their ordering and preservation, and should 
feel at liberty to enact laws from time to time for the good of the colony.. 
All of the profits in trading, fishing, planting or anything else, were to 
go, for a period of seven years, into common stock, and at the end of 



THE MAYFLOWER. 59 

that time were to be equally divided among all who had contributed 
money to the enterprise, and those who had engaged in it personally. 
Ever>^ person over sixteen years of age was rated as owning a single 
share, or ten pounds, and if he provided his own outfit to the amount of 
ten pounds, he was entitled to two shares. This was according to the 
advice of Thomas Weston, who had helped to supply ships and money 
for the enterprise. The captain of the Alayfiower was impatient to land 
his passengers and return to England, and, therefore, they landed at 
last upon this "stern and rock-bound coast." Many journeys were 
made to the mainland, and one place was found where there were corn- 
fields, and little brooks of running water. Here it was decided to build 
the colony, and on the 15th of December, the MayHozuer left her harbor 
at Cape Cod, and dropped her anchor half way between Plymouth and 
Clark's Island. Ten days later a shallop left the ship with the distinct 
purpose of landing the pilgrims upon the spot of their future home. 
IVIen, women and children went to look it over and say what they 
thought about it. The first shallop was filled with sailors, for the most 
part, but there were a few women aboard, and in the prow sat John 
Alden, the young scholar, and Mary Chilton, a gay young girl, who 
was the first to spring upon the rock. It was not until the 21st of March 
that all of the company went on shore. Shelter was still insufiicient, 
and provisions were poor and scanty. Disease began to spread among 
them, and when spring came, almost one-half of the little company was 
dead. IMiles Standish, the stalwart captain, was a widower, and half a 
dozen of the most reliable men of the company were in the same unfortu- 
nate state. John Carver, the Governor, died in April. Mar}^ Chilton, 
the light-hearted girl, was left an orphan. There was great fear from 
the Indians, although they did not disturb them. One can see, in 
imagination, their poor little houses, built of logs, cemented with mortar, 
the low, thatched roofs, and the oil-paper which serv^ed as window glass. 
Side by side in the rooms stood the beds, as many as could be crowded 
into an apartment. There was a great shed for the public goods, and a 
melancholy little hospital for the sick. On the top of the church stood 
the four brass cannons, pointing toward the several directions. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Palfrey's and Elliott's "New England." 
Barry s "Massachusetts." 
Young's "Chronicles of Massachusetts." 
Fiction — L. M. Child's "Hobomoc." 

H. V. Cheney's "A Peep at the Pilgrims." 
J. L. Motley's "Merry Mount." 
Poetry— Longfellow's "Courtship of :Miles Standish.'' 
Mrs. Heman's "Landing of the Pilgrims." 
Rev. John Pierpont's "The Pilgrim Fathers." 



CHAPTER XIII. 



•^0 ^hH^ \mnk 



THE NEXT THREE YEARS — THE ORDER, CIVIL, MARTIAL AND RE- 
LIGIOUS, WHICH THEY MAINTAINED THE 

MANNER OF THEIR DAILY 
LIVING, ETC. 

fjLI'HOUGH we now see fit to hold the Indians in 
I such contempt, the early settlers realized that 
they owed much to them. Such knowledge as 
they had of planting corn and other indigenous 
productions, they had to thank the Indians for. 
The pilgrims at Plymouth had seen but little of the 
Indians through their tedious winter, but when March 
came, they were surprised one day by the sight of a 
naked Indian walking into their camp and looking 
around with unfeigned curiosity. This man's name 
was Samoset, and he gave them much knowledge of 
the country' and of the Indians near them. Indeed, 
he opened friendly relation between them and the 
Indians round about, for he was able to speak the 
English tongue, having had dealings with certain explorers, whose 
settlements had been unsuccessful. Samoset introduced them to Massa- 
soit, the Sagamore of that region. These northern Indians seem to 
have lacked that dignity of carriage and grace of manner, which made 
the Indians of the islands in the West Indies so attractive. Samoset had 
an Indian friend who visited the colony much, and taught the colonists 
many things, for which they owed him a great debt of gratitude, and he, 
later, acted as guide for the ambassadors from the colony, when they 
made their treaty of peace with the surrounding Indians. The health 
of the people improved as the soft New England spring opened, and 
they gained courage from the very influence of the budding vegetation 
about them, and from the sea, which was always in sight. The gi'ound 
was carefully cultivated, and fishing became a fine art, so that at last it 




THE DAILY ROUND. 6 1 

became possible for them to make journeys into the country, and become 
acquainted with the region about them. They explored the cape, and 
went as far as Boston harbor, and were filled, it is said, with regret that 
they did not settle upon this pleasanter spot, which was so sheltered and 
secure, compared to the bold and barren place which they had selected 
in the drearv' January weather. The summer passed, and in November, 
a ship came from England, It was the first news that they had heard 
from home, and the eagerness with which they read their letters, and 
received their share of the supplies, can better be imagined than 
described. The Fortiuie brought, also, a new patent, issued to John 
Pierce and associates by the Plymouth Company, and for the first time 
establishing the Puritans legally. 

The London adventurers had the hardihood to send a letter filled 
with reproaches that the Mayflower had been sent to England 
without a cargo from America. They seemed to have no thought of 
the difficulties which the colonists had had in merely preserving life 
and beginning their settlement. What they expected as a cargo they 
did not say. There could have been ver}^ little to send them at that 
time. Bradford was now Governor, and he returned a quiet letter, that 
so general had been the disease through the winter, that the living had 
scarcely been able to bur>^ the dead, and the well not in any means 
sufficient to attend the sick. However, they succeeded in putting some 
lumber and peltry on the Fortune^ on her home voyage, only a part 
of which reached England, as she encountered a French ship, which 
overhauled her. The second winter passed calmly, and with much less 
suffering than the previous one. It was a very orderly community, not 
indulging in much pleasure, and yet not without quiet enjoyment. 
There were few books in the colony besides the Bible and hymn book, 
of which, indeed, there were very few copies. 

A little revelry was attempted on Christmas day, by some of the 
young men who had come over in the Fortune^ but this was promptly 
checked by Governor Bradford. The young men had said that it was 
against their conscience to work on Christmas day, and had, therefore, 
been excused from their tasks, but when the Governor returned at noon 
and found them playing at ball and pitching quoits in the street, he 
remarked that it was against his conscience to let others play while he 
worked. No doubt, however, there was good fellowship among the 
people, and many an hour of not unpleasant gossip in the twilight. The 
firm, religious faith of the people, and their sincere devotional exercises, 
were a great source of gladness and strength to them, and a help to that 



62 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



statesman-like order which made their little settlement so admirable. 
The Narraeansett Indians at one time showed hostile intentions. 
The best description of their dealings with the colonists can be found in 
Lon^i^fel low's "Courtship of IVIiles Standish." They sent a bundle of 
arrows, tied together with the skin of a rattlesnake. It was a challenge 
to war. ]\Iiles Standish, swelling with rage, stuffed the snake skin full 
of bullets and returned it. It was answer enough. The Narragan- 
setts left the colonists undisturbed, but it was thought best to palisade 
the town, and to keep the men in martial order, ready at any time for 
an attack. Toward spring, a fort was built on the spot called Burial 
Hill. 




MILES STANDISH FILLING THE RATTLESNAKE SKIN WITH BULLETS. 

In the summer of 1622, a number of men were sent to the colon)-, 
who were of a very vicious nature, and this occasioned the first actual 
difiiculty with the Indians. They were a lazy, mischievous and dis- 
orderly set of men, whom it was a great burden for the colony to 
support. It became necessary to send them away, such an offense 
were they to the upright and moral founders of the community, and 
Plymouth rejoiced greatly when these unruly fellows set up a separate 
colony at Wessagusset, which we know as Weymouth. The manner 
in which these \oung men treated the Indians was shameful. Not only 
did they deal unfairly with them, but were guilty of actual crimes 
toward them, and toward their women, "which made them most obnox- 
ious. Even an Indian is a judge of character, and they soon perceived 



THE DAILY ROUND. 63 

that they had to do with a lot of bullies, who, like all people of their 
class, were lacking in true courage. One of the colonists stole corn from 
the Indians, and his fellows decided to hang him, to appease their 
wrath. They had some doubt, however, about the advisability of 
wasting a strong and vigorous man, as the culprit chanced to be, and it 
was proposed by an economical wag to hang an old and feeble man in 
his place, but fortunately for the old and feeble man, this was overruled. 
So offensive did this colony become that the Massachusetts Indians 
finally made up their minds to kill the whole of them off, and be well 
rid of them. They supposed that such an act would greatly oflfend the 
Plymouth colonists and call for active revenge, and, therefore, thought 
it best to kill all of the English. A very slight accident prevented the 
entire massacre of the colonists. Massasoit, the great Sagamore, fell 
ver}' sick, and two delegates from the Plymouth company were sent to 
his place to express sympathy, and give help, if possible. They found 
the chief very ill, but by careful nursing and some simple medicine, 
restored him to health. The gratitude of the Sagamore was great, and 
he revealed the plan against the colonists. Captain Standish started 
out with eight sturdy men, and visited their disorderly neighbors at 
Wessagusset. He found them in a bad state, physically and morally, 
and quite unwilling to do anything in their own defense. Standish, 
therefore, engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle with the chiefs of the 
hostile tribles, and succeeded in killing two of them. Afterward, there 
followed a skirmish in an open field, but without loss. The head of 
one of the chiefs was taken to Plymouth, and exposed as a warning to 
the natives. As for the Wessagusset men, part of them went up to the 
Maine colonies, and the rest joined the pilgrims at Plymouth. The 
peace-keeping Puritans over in Holland heard of this engagement with 
deep regret. They could not well understand how their old friends 
should have reached a point where they could shed blood. It was 
quite impossible for them to know anything about the conditions. 

A little later than this, another colony was started by Robert Gorges, 
who was now Governor of the entire territory known as Massachusetts, 
upon the very spot where the Wessagusset colony had been, but his 
people became discouraged in a short time and only a handful 
remained. 

So dissatisfied did the people become with their articles of agree- 
ment with the London adventurers, which called for so much work, 
and from which they personally reaped no benefit, that it became 
necessary to make some change. They followed the example of the 



64 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Virginian colony, and gave to each man a certain quantity of land to 
work on his own account. As in Virginia, also, this was the beginning 
of prosperity. The colonists took a deeper interest in the land which 
they now could call their own. 

At another time they had a struggle to preserve their independence, 
because John Pierce, procuring a second patent, wished to make them 
his tenants. This would have started a land system like that in England, 
but, fortunately for the colonists, Pierce met with such losses in send- 
ing a ship to America that he was persuaded to return the grant. The 
Puritans still remaining in Holland were very anxious to join their 
friends in Plymouth, but the London Company objected to this, and 
wished to force upon the devout Puritans people of a different sort. To 
this end they sent over a minister, named Lyford. He had been in 
Plymouth but a short time when he tried to introduce the old service of 
the Church of England. The Puritans resented this with pride and 
fierceness, and finally sent the minister and his friends from the colony. 
He had drawn about him many discontented spirits, among them John 
Oldham, who was finally expelled, with much disgrace, at the butt ends 
of the muskets of the sturdy Puritans. The company in London defended 
the action of Lyford, and finally refused to be responsible for the fate of 
the Puritans. This left the colonies without protection. They could 
no longer rely upon supplies from England, and were left to work out 
their own destiny. With such brave and stalwart men, nothing better 
could have happened. To be independent with them was to be success- 
ful. They sent for their friends in Leyden, but their dear old pastor, 
Robinson, whom they looked forward with so much pleasure to meet- 
ing, died, like ISIoses, in sight of the promised land. The colonists did 
not hear the last of Lyford for some time, for the London adventurers 
saw fit to send him over again to found a colony upon Cape Ann, a 
district which the pilgrims protested belonged to them, by right of a 
patent made out to Robert Cushman and Winslow. The choleric Miles 
Standish nearly got into an engagement with the Englishmen at Cape 
Ann, but finally made a compromise, by which they were to work 
together in the production of salt, and so lived amicably. But this 
colony came to little, though a company was fonned at Dorchester, 
England, which sent out for three successive years men and cattle. The 
colonists went back to England, or scattered along the coast, and a few 
of them settled on the spot we now call Salem. Meanwhile, the 
Plymouth colonists had got some cattle, three heifers, and a great white 
bull. 



THE DAILY ROUND. 65 

The days went on peacefully now. On Sundays, everyone who was 
not sick met at the little church. The men sat upon one side and the 
women on the other, with those of noble rank quite by themselves. 
The little boys, very impatient at the long service, were crowded on the 
pulpit stairs and guarded by constables. These constables each had a 
wand, with a hare's foot on one end, and a hare's tail on the other. 
They used this to keep the people from sleeping. A woman's forehead, 
if by any chance she nodded, was only touched with the tail, but if any 
naughty little boy went to sleep, he was promptly pounded with the 
hare's foot. The services were three or four hours long, and the sexton 
stood near the minister, turning over the great hour-glass as it emptied. 
It was not until 1836 that they got the Metrical Bay Psalm-Book, with 
its great black notes and rugged lettering. They knew less than a 
dozen tunes, and sung these over and over, year in and year out. The 
houses were scrupulously neat. Most of them were one story in 
height, built of logs, with very steep roofs. In course of time a few 
wood and brick houses were built, two stories high in front, and one 
behind. The windows had many panes, and opened on hinges like 
a casement, and the huge fire-places admitted logs which would burn 
for nearly the whole day. There were no clocks, only sun-dials, and 
many of the houses were built facing the south, so that the sun at noon 
would fall square on the floor, and tell them it was mid-day. The law 
allowed none of them to wear finer}', unless he or she could prove that 
it could be afforded. All through the week the women wore home- 
spun, and on Sunday brought out from their chests the silk hoods or 
lace neckerchiefs which had been brought across the sea. Miles 
Standish kept the soldiers well drilled. They had match-lock muskets, 
fired by a slow match instead of a percussion cap. So heavy were 
these weapons that even these sturdy soldiers had to have a large iron 
fork stuck in the ground to hold them. They were belted with bando- 
liers, which contained a sword and a dozen tin cartridge-boxes. Steel 
helmets and iron breast-plates were not unknown, although many of the 
colonists wore padded overcoats to keep off the arrows of the Indians. 
To be a voter, one must also be a church member. In everthing, 
religion ruled. The State had no existence without the Church. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Cheever's "Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth." 
Biography — Anderson's "Women of the Puritan Times." 
Fiction — H. ISI. Whiting's "Faith White's Letter-Book." 
E. N. Sears' "Pictures of the Olden Times." 
Mrs. J. B. Webb's "The Pilgrims of New England."' 
Poetry— Whittier's "The Garrison of Cape Ann." 



CHAPTER XIV. 



THE MASSACRE AT JAMESTOWN — LORD BALTIMORE AND THE SETTLE- 
MENT OF MARYLAND THE LIBERAL LAWS OF THE 

BALTIMORE SETTLEMENT, 





pBOUT the time that the little Plymouth colony 
y became alanned at the threatening attitude of the 
Indians, the colony in Jamestown, Virginia, suffered 
a great calamity. The condition of the colony was 
peculiar. In one way it did not lack prosperity. 
The raising of tobacco was continued to the exclu- 
sion of everything else. Laws were made to regulate 
this, but it is a well-known fact that a law is good for 
nothing unless the people will agree to enforce it, and 
the people of Virginia did not wish this law enforced. 
King James had begun to look upon the colony with 
some suspicion. He suspected treason, and not without 
reason, for it was quite true that they did not care to be 
dictated to by their governors at home. Sir Edward 
Sandys was thought to be a man of too much intellect to safely act as 
treasurer of a community which was so rapidly increasing in power, 
and the Earl of Southampton was appointed in his place. Sir 
George Yeardley retired from the governorship in 1622, giving place to 
Sir Francis Wyat. These were all men of sense, and they did what 
they could for Virginia. They tried to raise grapes for the purpose of 
making wine, but they do not seem to have understood the art very 
well, for the wine had a trick of souring before they got ready to drink 
it. Mulberry trees and silk worms were brought over to start the 
cultivation of silk, but for all of that, most of the colonists were dressed 
in rags. Workmen were brought from Italy and employed in the glass 
works, and about the same time iron works were started. The 
Americans began making their own salt, and building their own ships, 



THE REWARD OF TREACHERY. 67 

and saw-mills were put up by Dutchmen, but this work was very' 
slow, and none of it really successful. They spent all their time, 
strength and money in the raising of tobacco, so that, fourteen years 
after the colony was started, there was next to no barley, oats or peas in 
the country, and even at this period they were frequently threatened 
with starvation. In the meantime, they treated the Indians with the 
same selfishness and lack of wisdom which they showed in all other 
matters. The Indians had, no doubt, long intended to take revenge. 
However that may be, suddenly, on the 22d of March, 1692, the Indians, 
loitering about the village, rushed upon the people in the fields and in 
the houses and slaughtered them. 

They did not even spare the little children, but killed all, regardless 
of the innocence of their victims. They went further than this, and 
hacked at the dead bodies with a wild cruelty of which only the 
American Indian is capable when he becomes imbruted by the sight of 
blood. The houses and barns of the people were burned and their 
animab killed. This did not occur in Jamestown, but in the little 
outlying villages and plantations. Jamestown would have suffered the 
same fate, but for the warning which one friendly Indian carried the 
night before. All who could, took refuge within the city, and took 
ever\- possible means for defense. The panic was wide-spread. Some 
of the smaller places were entirely deserted, and it was many years 
before the plantations recovered from the harm which this did to them, 
for men were afraid to remain in isolated places. After this there was 
no mercy shown upon either side. The English were quite as cruel 
and remorseless as the Indians had been. The corn-fields, the fishing 
weirs, the villages of the natives, were entirely destroyed. Whenever a 
white man saw an Indian he shot him, and blood-hounds and mastiffs 
were trained to follow and tear them to pieces. The King seemed to 
blame the colonists for the present state of affairs. The company was 
still more dissatisfied than the King, and out of the various misunder- 
standings which grew from this, and the disregard the colony paid to 
the King's wishes, came the breaking up of the Virginia Company. 
The government of the colony was put into the hands of a commission, 
with Sir Thomas Smith at the head. 

The unhappy people of Virginia were long in recovering from their 
calamity. The people were crowded once more into close quarters, and 
there was a great deal of sickness, of discouragement, and of hunger. 
Their viciousness took another, and yet more dreadful form. It was 
turned from wantonness and selfishness to revenge. They prayed, with 



68 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

a show of devotion, that the Indians might fall into their hands to be 
murdered and bereft of all that they owned. There was no longer 
any show of Christian kindness. If the colonists were filled with 
revenge, they were none the less troubled with fear, and it was a long, 
long time before they dared venture back to the cultivation of their 
plantations. This great anxiety about home matters made them rather 
indifferent about the whims of the London Council, and they worried 
little because their patent was taken away from them. After King James 
died, very little attention was paid to them one way or the other, and if 
they received no benefit, neither did they receive any checks from across 
the ocean. Four colonial governors serv^ed in turn, but they were 
displaced for the first royal governor. Sir John Harvey, who was sent 
over by the English King to administer royal laws after the King's own 
views. How the people, who had so long been independent, detested 
this arrangement, can well be imagined. 

Shortly before the appointment of Harvey, Jamestown had had a 
distinguished visitor. It was Lord Baltimore, a Catholic English 
nobleman of much wealth and culture. Virginia was quite in excite- 
ment about the visit of so distinguished a gentleman, and the council 
grew so curious that they officially inquired why he had come, and how 
long he was going to stay. The Virginians were neither the Church of 
England people nor Puritans — the Puritans having come later — and 
they objected to a settlement of Catholics among them. They, there- 
fore, put the oath of allegiance to the colony to him, which was of such 
a nature that he could not take it, for religious reasons, and the colonists 
were glad of this excuse to ask him to return to England. Seeing that 
his visit was disagreeable, he courteously withdrew from the colony, but 
left his family behind him at Jamestown. One reason why he was 
disliked at the colony was because he was principal Secretar}' of the 
State to King James for the last five or six years of that monarch's life, 
and the difficulty between King James and the colony was naturally 
visited upon Lord Baltimore. He held a grant to some lands in the 
southeast part of Newfoundland, and had there a Protestant colony, 
which he had established. It was after visiting this, and finding the 
climate not to his liking or at all suited to his delicate health, that he 
came to Virginia. This was in the spring of 1629. Leaving Virginia, 
he visited Chesapeake Bay, was charmed with that region, and begged 
the King to give him a patent to it. This the King willingly did, but 
before the patent was signed, Lord Baltimore died, and it was left for 
his son to carry out his plans. The new Lord Baltimore named the 



THE REWARD OF TREACHERY. 69 

region Maryland, in honor of the Queen, The charter included all the 
country lying in the irregular triangle formed by the 40th degree of 
latitude, the Potomac river and Chesapeake Bay, as well as that part of 
the Peninusla between the ocean on the east, and Bay of Chesapeake on 
the west, with a line dividing it from the rest, drawn from the head- 
land, called Watkins Point. With very slight changes, this is the State 
to-day. The grant gave this property to the Lords of Maryland abso- 
lutely, as long as they were faithful in their allegiance to the King, 
Not even taxes were required. No gift could have been more complete. 
All the acknowledgment required of Lord Baltimore was that twice a 
year he was to send to the King two Indian arrows as a token of fealty. 
But the charter did not overlook the rights of the colonists. It gave the 
people the right to call themselves together to take part in framing the 
laws which were to govern them. No religious nor political distinctions 
were made, but Maryland was to be the home of all Englishmen who 
wished to move there. Lord Baltimore found himself unable to go 
with the first expedition, and sent his brother Leonard in his stead, and 
with him two friends, also cultivated and able gentlemen, Jerome 
Hawley and Thomas Cornwallis. The Catholics were being greatly 
persecuted at this time, and Marjdand became a refuge for them. In 
addition to the many gentlemen of wealth and influence who resorted 
thither, were many mechanics and laborers, and two Jesuit priests, 
whose simple and tender lives have made a white page in history. 
These were Father Andrew White and Father John Althan. The 
former of these wrote the only narrative which was kept of the 
experiences of the colony, which was composed of about three hundred 
souls. They were borne to America on The Ark and The Dove^ 
starting November, 1633. They encountered many dangers on their 
passage from storms, pirates and war-like Spaniards, but at length 
reached Jamestown, where they were entertained for a week by Governor 
Harvey, The early part of March they sailed to their own possessions, 
and turning up the Potomac river, were enchanted with what they 
found. The groves of beneficent trees, the many inflowing streams 
and stately bluffs persuaded them that they could not have found a better 
place for a settlement. They landed first upon Blackstone Island, 
which then covered four hundred acres of land in the midst of the 
Potomac, It is now two centuries since, and nothing is left of these 
islands but sandy shoals. The 25th of March, the day of the landing, 
was the day of the annunciation of the most Holy Virgin, and they cele- 
brated mass upon the beach, at the close of which they planted a cross 



70 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

of wood upon the highest part of the island, taking possession of it Tor 
our Savior and for our Sovereign Lord, the King of England. 

They used much tact in their first dealing with the Indians, asking 
permission of them to settle upon their land. It was a piece of good 
fortune for them that they chanced to meet with Captain Fleet, an 
Englishman, quietly trading in peltries upon his own account. He had 
been a prisoner for several years among the Indians, and w^as on 
excellent terms with them. Through his influence the colonists were 
soon in friendly trade with the natives, and the danger of hostility was 
averted. Fleet guided them through the forests and up tne rivers, 
showing them the best points of the country, and advising them about 
the site of their first town; and at the end of the broad harbors on 
the noble bluff they decided to build. Behind it lay the beautiful 
\-alley which the people of Baltimore know, with growths of nut trees 
and oak and springs of clear water. On the bluff stood a huge 
mulberry tree, and standing by this, Leonard Calvert, the brother of 
Lord Baltimore, made his treaty with the Indians, who had a village 
upon that spot. The tribe was called Yaocomico, and for a certain 
payment in goods prized by the Indians, the strangers were to share 
their town with them until their harvest was gathered, after which the 
savages were to move elsewhere. The first village of Maryland was 
called St. Marys, and the expedition being managed by men of states- 
men-like quality, and having in it workmen of strength and common 
sense, they immediately began building and planting. The Indians 
were of much help to them, teaching them not only how to plant natix'e 
vegetables, but how to cook them in the best manner. Religious 
services were held from the first, and as soon as possible a neat little 
chapel was made. By the time the Indians had left them, quite a little 
town had been built, and some public buildings started on the bluff. 
Winter found them well provided, and already the liberality with which 
the government was conducted, began to invite the oppressed, not only 
from England, but from the Jamestown and Plymouth colonies as well, 
for in the Jamestown colonies Catholics were disapproved of, and in the 
Plymouth colonies the slightest deviation from the orthodox principles, 
as the Puritans held them, was promptly punished. 

Lord Baltimore's city was the first one in America where every man 
was allowed to worship God after his own conscience. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
HiSTORT — McSherry's "Marylaiul." 

Griffith's "Annals of Haltimore." 
Fiction— rnuUling-'s "Konigsniark." 

Kennedy's "Kobol the Bowl." 



CHAPTER XV. 



il^i ]f3Ht0-1|aBpar$. 



PROSPERITY OF THE MARYLAND SETTLEMENT — CONSPIRACIES AGAINST 
THEM — THE TRIUMPH OF VIRGINIA OVER THEM, AND THE 
PERSECUTION OF THE CATHOLICS — CALVERT'S SUCCESS 
" , AND THE RETURN OF THE JESUITS. 




^^IRGINIA disapproved of the new colony of Man - 
land. There was, certainly, ground enough upon 
the Atlantic coast for both of those settlements,, 
but whether there was policy enough, was quite 
another question. The Virginians, it will be 
remembered, had lost their royal charter, and the 
fact that Lord Baltimore's colony came with the royal 
grant, and with the royal encouragement, made them 
very envious. One man in the Virginian colony^ 
especially, resented the settlement of Maryland. It was 
the secretary of the Virginian Council, William Clay- 
borne. He had taken possession of Kent Island, in 
Chesapeake Bay, and built a store-house there, for the 
beaver and other furs, in which he traded extensively. 
When Baltimore's people came. Clay borne said that he owned the 
island, and he refused in advance to leave it. 

The Virginians had sent a protest to the King against the settlement 
of Maryland, but it had been decided in England that Baltimore's 
patent should not be destroyed, and both colonies were advised to be as 
amiable as possible. Amiability, however, was not in Clay borne' s line_ 
He had worked hard upon the ground where the Marylanders now- 
settled, and he felt that he had a right to it. Being a willful and strong- 
minded man, he took the worst methods for preserving that right. 
He incited the Indians against the colonists, who found it necessary to 
build a block-house for refuge, in case of attack ; but as the Indians met 
with nothing but kindness from the settlers, they became persuaded at 



72 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

length that Clayborne had misinformed them. The Marylanders tried to 
capture Clayborne, but he knew the ways of the woods too well for them 
to succeed, and reached Jamestown, where he worked upon the promi- 
nent men, and won them to his side of the case. 

When the spring of 1635 came, and Clayborne wished to carry out 
his usual trading trip, he started for his island with a small vessel, 
called the Long Tail. The Mar>danders met him with two armed 
pinnaces, under the command of Cornwallis. The Long Tail was 
seized after a vigorous fight, two of the Virginians being killed and 
one of Cornwallis' men. Then the people of Jamestown were in a 
great state of mind. They gathered in the streets, and talked and 
talked. They called an assembly and talked some more. No one had 
any sympathy with the Mar}'landers' defense of their property, except 
the royal Governor Harvey. So indignant did the people become with 
him that they sent him to England to be tried, but he was promptly 
sent back again by the King, with an inquiry as to what right they had 
to arrest a governor appointed by him. 

The people in Maryland, finding that they were to be protected, 
went on working busily. Their harvest was a great success. They 
stored away enough corn for the winter, and sent one thousand bushels 
up to Plvmouth, asking for salt-fish in exchange. The cattle and 
poultry wliicli they had purchased from Virginia had been so well 
managed by certain experienced breeders of stock, that it had greatly 
increased, not alone supplying them with eggs, but allowed them plenty 
to kill and eat. The people were not long satisfied with the rude build- 
ings which they had first built. They had met with suflficient 
prosperity to be able to send to England for bricks and other building 
material, and the houses which they erected were finn, and to some 
degree elegant. A manor was built for Governor Calvert, and within 
two or three years an excellent State House, in the form of a cross, was 
built upon the bluff. In front of it stood the famous mulberry- tree, 
under which the first treaty had been made with the Indians, and upon 
this were nailed all the notices and State papers which the Governor 
issued. Here the little armed force gathered for drill, and here the 
town punishments were made. A little further back stood the church, 
and about it the church-yard. 

Certain fashions were set in the building of those days which are 
noticeable now in the city of Baltimore. The ground floor and base- 
ments were made of red brick, or paved with square red tiles. Some 
of the houses were of red brick, ornamented here and there with black. 



THE PEACE-KEEPERS. JT^ 

There were high, red brick walls, and stout chimneys built upon the 
outside, with the fire-places paved in red tile. Plantations began to be 
cultivated around the town, tobacco being the chief staple raised for 
exportation. 

In 1635, Lord Baltimore began to make grants of lands to settlers. 
To those who had come upon the first voyage extensive grants were 
made, so that the pioneers became, to an extent, lords of the property. 
Mills were built, both at St. Mary's and on the plantations, so that it 
became possible for them to make their own flour, and to start various 
other home industries. Under these fortunate conditions people 
crowded to the colony, and, in 1635, it was found necessary to make 
a new code of laws. The simple rules, which were at first sufficient to 
control the community, were no longer adapted to their growing and 
complex civilization. But Lord Baltimore did not approve of the laws, 
and refused assent to them. Two years later he made out a code, but 
the assembly of the people would not accept his laws any more than he 
accepted their' s. It was not because they objected to the laws that he 
made, but because they wished to govern themselves, and at last they 
had their way, though it was not for several years. 

The Indians who lived about St. Mary's were always friendly to 
the settlement, but the Susquehanna Indians were the enemies of the 
Yaocomicos, and, therefore, of all whom the tribe were friendly to. In 
1642 the Susquehannas opened quite a warfare with the Mary landers, 
which lasted for two years, when treaties were made. 

The kindness which the Catholics of Maryland had shown to all 
people of other religions did not meet with a proper return. The 
Catholics were the friends of the King in England, but the Protestants 
preferred the Parliament, which, at this time, was having much 
difficulty in getting along with the King. So when the revolution 
came in England against the King, the people of Mar^dand were divided 
on this subject, and it put the Catholics against the Protestants in a 
way which made much trouble in the colony. Leonard Calvert became so 
troubled about the quarrels of the people he was trying to govern, 
that he sailed for England, to have a talk with his brother, Lord Balti- 
more, leaving Giles Brent to look after the colony. 

This was a splendid chance for Clayborne to have revenge upon the 
Mar>danders. He went to St. Mary's and stirred up the Protestants, or 
the Parliament faction, against the government of Baltimore, and his 
plans were aided in an unexpected way. Brent ordered that a vessel 
belonging to the Parliament party should be seized when it got to St. 



74 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Maty's, and its coiiiinander arrested on a charge of treason against the 
King. This made the Protestants very angry, and they allowed 
Clayborue to come in and take possession of his old island of Kent; so 
when Calvert returned he found everything in a very bad state, and he 
and his council and their friends were driven from the colony, and had 
to go to Virginia for safety. Captain Edward Hill, a Virginian, was 
made Governor, but everything was done about as Clayborne said. 
Though he was such a determined man, he did not understand how to 
govern, and while he remained, there was constant quarreling and 
dissatisfaction in the colony. 

The Jesuit priests had to leave St. Mary's. They built a mission 
on the Bay of St. Inigo, and here Governor Calvert erected a fort, with 
a mill inside and a few buildings about, besides a chapel. Calvert 
collected his friends on the Virginia border, and in April surprised St. 
Mar>''s, and took it with but little trouble. The people seemed to have 
been glad to get back a man who would govern them with firmness and 
order. Captain Edward Hill was sent back to Virginia, and Clayborne 
escaped to Jamestown. Governor Calvert died in 1647, leaving Thomas 
Green to be his successor, and Mistress Margaret Brent the adminis- 
tratrix of his enormous possessions. She was a remarkable woman, 
with great strength of will, and a good understanding of business and 
government affairs. 

Maryland continued to be free to people of all religions, and the 
gentle Catholic missionaries continued their work. In many ways this 
was the most successful colony in its beginning upon the Atlantic coast. 
Its leaders were men of good blood and training, with a sincere rever- 
ence for God, and some experience in government. Their laws were 
suited to the time and the people, and Lord Baltimore's name is still 
held in high regard in the city which is called after him. 

KOR FURTHER READING: 
Bkx.kai'HY — Spark's "Calvert." 

Mill's "Founders of Maryland." 
Fiction— Mathilda Douglas' "Black Beard." 



CHAPTER XVI. 



NEW JERSEY — THE SETTLEMENT UNDER PETER MINUET — OPPOSITION 

OF THE DUTCH — THE TRIUMPHS OF THE DUTCH UNDER 

PETER STUYVESANT — END OF SWEDISH 



INDEPENDENCE IN AMERICA. 



EW JERSEY was the only State settled by the 
Swedes. In 1614, when the first Dutch settled 
their fort on Manhattan Island, they built also a 
redoubt on what is now the New Jersey shore, 
and the whole of this region they called New 
Netherlands. But little attention was paid to 
this, and the ground was practically unoccupied. 
Ten years later, William Usselinex, of Antwerp, who 
had first succeeded in establishing the great Dutch West 
India Company, visited Sweden. Gustavus Adolphus was 
King of Sweden then, and before him, Usselinex laid 
the plan of founding a Swedish colony in America, 
telling him of the great profits which might arise from 
the trade there. The King was much impressed with 
the business-like eloquence of the Dutchman, and perhaps still more 
impressed with the idea that another Christian church might be built 
upon savage shores. He felt that Sweden had been behind the other 
nations, and it would greatly add to his power and reputation if he were 
to further such a scheme. The Diet of Sweden favored the King's 
project, and, therefore, when Gustavus Adolphus was killed, in 1632, on 
the battle-field, the plans which he had laid were carried out. It was 
several years, however, before the company was formed, calling itself 
the Sweden West India Company. Peter Minuet, who had been dis- 
charged from his post as Governor, asked to have charge of its first 
expedition. It was given him, on account of the experience he had 
had, and in the autumn of 1637, he set sail from Gottenburg, with two 




76 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

vessels and fifty emigrants. These vessels entered Delaware Bay and 
sailed up the river, which they named after their Queen, Christina. 
Minuet bought of the Indians all the land on the west side of South 
river, from Cape Henlopen to near where Trenton now stands. As 
usual in such purchases, the land was to run westward indefinitely. 
They built a fort near the present site of Wilmington. 

The Dutch promptly resented this intrusion upon their territory', 
and sent down a sounding proclamation, which warned Minuet, in the 
most serious terms, that he was trespassing upon their rights; but the 
Swedes were charmed with the country so in contrast to their bleak 
native land, and were in no mind to leave it. Minuet had said, in 
answer to the first question asked him by the Dutch, that he came for 
wood and water, but as the Swedes began gardening and building, he 
was forced to confess the truth. To the Dutch proclamation, however, 
he paid no heed, but went on working upon his fort and trading house 
and establishing commerce with the Indians. Twenty-four men were 
placed in possession, and vessels were sent home well laden, to return 
with more emigrants. Though the Dutch were very indignant, they 
hesitated to venture against the determined and well-armed Swedes, who 
took a very flourishing trade away from the Dutch West India Conipan>-. 

The first summer and winter passed pleasantly with them, but in 
the second winter their supplies became low, and they seriously thought, 
at one time, of going to the Dutch at Manhattan, or of finding a way 
for returning to their native home. In the spring, however, matters 
became better. Some trade was established in New Netherlands, and 
further additions to the colony came from Sweden, bringing with them 
abundant supplies. They were an exceedingly industrious and saving 
people. Their selection for a settlement had been most happy; they 
lived at peace with each other and with the Indians, and in a short 
time their little towns began to wear a look of vigorous prosperity, 
especially in the autumn, when more colonists came, with tools and 
mechanics to use them. Three ships, at least, came in the autumn, and 
it is said that many were anxious to come, but had been unable to do 
so for want of ship-room. The following summer (164 1) Minuet died 
in the fort which he had built. The Swedes were much attached to 
him, and mourned him deeply. A Swede — Holleandare — became Gov- 
ernor in his place. 

The English pursued toward them the policy which has made them 
the greatest nation in the world. They were bent on conquest, and 
constantly interfered with their quiet neighbors. At length a number 



A BRIEF AUTHORITY. ^"J 

of New England colonists, under the charge of Robert Cogswell, left 
Connecticut and came to the South river, having heard that that region 
was especially beautiful. William the Testy, Governor of the Dutch, 
protested in his usual high-flown language, but the English quietly 
worked on, and before the end of the summer, had planted corn and 
built trading posts on Salem creek and on the Schuylkill. New Haven 
took these towns under her especial protection, and William the Testy 
knew that it would be useless to come in conflict with the New Eng- 
land confederation of colonies. The Swedes, as well as the Dutch, 
were vexed at this intrusion of the English, and in 1642, when the 
Dutch sent a commissary- to force the intruders away, the people at Fort 
Christina gave them all the help they could. The English were obliged 
to yield. They were taken prisoners to Manhattan, and then sent to 
their own homes. New Haven thought it best not to resent this insult 
to her dignity. 

About this time a fort was built twelve miles below where Philadel- 
phia now stands, and called the New Gottenburg. The building of 
this was superintended by John Printz, a cavalry lieutenant in the 
Swedish service, who had been sent out to take the place of Holleandare 
as Governor. Near the fort, Printz built a manor house, magnificent 
for that time, which he called Printz Hall. The home government 
appropriated a large sum of money for the support of the colony, and 
promised to keep it supplied with soldiers. Printz was a very over- 
bearing and proud man, who, from first to last, managed the affairs 
of the colony with decision and dignity. Neither English nor Dutch 
were allowed longer to take liberties with the Swedes. His fort of New 
Gottenburg compelled every vessel to show her colors as she passed, and 
no trade was allowed which did not pay tribute. The Dutch continued 
to send out fierce letters, but to these, a man like Printz was not likely 
to pay any attention. The English tried to trade on the rivers which 
the Swedes now claimed, but they were promptly arrested by order of 
the Governor, and the English learned that for once they were not to 
be allowed to have their own way. 

In 1645, ^^ rather amiable commissary at the Dutch fort, Nassau, 
was removed by William the Testy, of New Amsterdam. The officer 
who took his place was more aggressive in his nature, and seized the 
first opportunity to put the authority of the Swedes to test. Disputes 
began between the governors of the colonies, and much diplomacy, and, 
to tell the truth, no little deceit was used. When Hudde, the new 
Governor of the Dutch fort, tried to start a settlement on some land 



78 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

which he had bought near the present site of Philadelphia, Printz sent 
some men to stop it, and the Dutch arms were torn down and used in 
a manner which greatly outraged the feelings of the patriotic colonists. 
Letters of great stateliness and hostility were exchanged, but the choleric 
Governor Printz refused to listen to the sensible advice of Hudde, 
When the sergeant, by whom Hudde had sent his letter, reached Printz 
Hall, and had got through the army of servants around it to where the 
Governor stood upon the steps, the letter was snatched from him and 
thrown carelessly to a man in waiting. After standing about imnoticed 
for some time, the Dutch soldier begged for a reply. This request was 
met in a way peculiar to the plethoric Printz, who weighed about four 
hundred pounds, and was a man of extraordinary' muscle. He picked up 
the unfortunate sergeant and threw him violently out of doors, taking a 
gun for the purpose of shooting him. After this there could be nothing 
but quarrels between the two nations. The Dutch trade was rapidly 
decreasing, for the Swedes kept both them and the English off the 
valuable lands which they occupied, and from which the Dutch had 
formerly made much money. Large companies of settlers continued to 
come to New Sweden, and these later settlers were of a much better 
class than those which had come at first. When New Netherland was 
at its most abject state, under the mismanagement of William the Testy, 
New Sweden wore an air of considerable prosperity. From the mouth 
of the Schuylkill to the Capes of Henlopen and May, Governor Printz 
held absolute control. It was one of the richest territories on the 
Atlantic coast, with sweeping hills and magnificent forests of trees. 
Not only did they claim the lovely waters of the Delaware, but many 
streams and winding creeks as well. Before them lay the bay, one 
hundred miles in length. 

When Peter Stuyvesant was appointed Governor of New Netherlands, 
the policy was somewhat changed. For several years Stuyvesant could 
do little but support Hudde in the position which he had taken, and to 
sustain, in a negative way, the title of the Dutch, but at length he found 
time to visit the Swedish territor}% and, being an old soldier, saw 
immediately the cause of the Dutch failures. Fort Nassau, instead of 
being at the mouth of the Delaware, was far up the stream, and quite 
useless to protect against invasion. The Swedes had taken possession 
of the mouth of the Schuylkill. At the confluence of these two rivers, 
trade even then found its center. Printz had seen that this must be the 
case, and had built his forts there and barred the approach to that point 
by others further down the Delaware. Modern commerce has improved 



A BRIEF AUTHORITY. 79 

the sfelection of Printz, by concentrating the shipping trade of Philadel- 
phia at exactly this point. Stuyvesant saw that Fort Nassau was 
useless, and ordered its destruction. He bought from the Indians all 
the land from Christina to Bombay Hook. Within this territory, about 
four miles below the mouth of the Christina, is the bold promontory, 
which commands a view of the Delaware both up and down. On this 
point, where the town of Newcastle now stands, they built Fort Casimir. 
Governor Printz was indignant, and said that this was an invasion on 
the soil of the Swedes, but Stuyvesant seems to have quieted him in 
some way, and the Swedes no longer commanded the Delaware. Their 
fort at the mouth of the Salem creek was abandoned as useless, but 
Printz was too proud to tell the real reason for its evacuation, and gave 
it out that the mosquitoes had been to bad for them to remain there 
longer. 

The Swedes and the Dutch were united about this time in a common 
fear. They dreaded the English much more than they did each other, 
and made a compact of mutual protection. It is certainly true that the 
English continued to cast envious eyes at the beautiful stretch of 
country with its genial climate and broad, noble hills. Besides, English- 
men do not like to be beaten, and will hardly admit defeat. They had 
not forgiven the Swedes and Dutch for uniting to drive them from this 
place a few years before, and, shortly after the compact between the two 
governors, sent a company of fifty persons from New Haven to make 
another attempt at an English settlement on the Delaware. The}- 
stopped at New Amsterdam to visit Governor Stuyvesant, and to tell 
him their purpose, but the independent Governor arrested them 
promptly, and only let them go when they promised to return to New 
Haven. 

Printz, however, had nothing of the diplomat in his composition, 
and could not abide the Dutch so near him, so he sent to Sweden for 
aid, but his impatience would not let him wait until he received an 
answer, and he sailed for Sweden himself, passing on his way John 
Rysingh, with a force of about three hundred men, who had been sent 
out to his relief The first act of this force was to demand the capture 
of Fort Casimir. The fort yielded without resistance, for they had no 
powder. The bark of the Dutch was apt to be much worse than their 
bite. Thus the Swedes were again in absolute possession of the South 
river, and all the Dutch in and about the fort were made to take the 
oath of allegiance to Sweden, or else forced to leave that part of the 
countr}\ Fort Casimir was called Fort Trinity, because it was taken 



8o THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

on Trinity Sunday. It can be imagined that the excitement in New 
Amsterdam was great, and that the indignation meetings among the 
hot-headed Dutchmen were many. Governor Stuyvesant felt, with some 
justice, that he had been unfairly treated, and seized every opportunity 
for retaliation. In this, the directors in Holland sustained him, but 
the winter passed and spring came before he was able to make prepa- 
rations for humbling the Swedes. At length a fleet of seven vessels, 
manned by a force of from six hundred to seven hundred men, sailed 
toward the South river. This was not until the loth of September. 
All the Swedes in the country did not number more than half the 
invading force. Resistance was absurd. The Swedes surrendered, and 
a part of them were made to take the oath of allegiance to the high and 
mighty lords and pratroons of this New Netherland province. Next, 
Fort Christina was taken, and after a siege of twelve days, a third fort 
surrendered. The invaders destroyed the little village of Christinaham, 
burning the houses and killing the cattle and seizing all the plunder 
they could. At length Rysing surrendered, conditionally. It was 
declared that the property belonging to the Swedes was to be unmolested, 
and that all who wished could have free passage to Europe. So ended 
Sweden's rule in America. Some Swedes still lived along the banks of 
the Delaware and cultivated their fanns, doing much to develop early 
the best resources of that countr>'. 

Stuyvesant appointed Johans Paul Jaquet as Governor over the 
southern territory of the West India Company. The Swedish colony 
was now called New Amstel, and the burgomasters of Amsterdam 
became much interested in their new possessions, making great offers 
to those who would move thither. The following years, however, were 
full of discontent. Malaria, as in all new agricultural settlements, 
weakened and dispirited the colonists, and though the farms promised 
well, the harvests were not plentiful, for insects of various sorts nearly 
destroyed the crops. Death became very frequent, especially among the 
children, and they came so near famine that they were obliged to use their 
seed corn for food. The Amsterdam Company no longer sent them sup- 
plies, as it had promised to do, and began to tax them. The colonists lost 
hope. Many moved to Virginia. Some returned to their own countries, 
and those who had contracted with the company to remain for a given 
length of time, escaped through the forest to the southern settlements. 

KOR FURTHKR READING: 
History — Carpenter's "History of New Jersey." 

Smith's "Histor>' ofthe Colony of New Jersey." 



SflU I*' 



CHAPTER XVII. 

m in lltm ^Mn. 



THE "PATROOXS" OF NEW NETHERLAND — THE SETTLEMENT AT 
MANHATTAN — THE MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE 
DUTCH — ESTABLISHMENT OF POPULAR 
LAND LAWS. 



T will be remembered that we left the Dutch in 
their settlements upon Long Island and the 
Hudson, just at the time when they were begin- 
ning to feel the need of a firmer government. 
None of the settlements had been prosperous 
until they were given an interest in the land they 
occupied. It was certain that this scheme must be used 
with the Dutch, for New Amsterdam settled but slowly, 
and it was seen thst trading-posts were not the best 
means of establishing civilization. Only poor emigrants 
came for a long time, but after a while rich men from 
Holland were sent out, and given privileges by the 
Dutch West India Company. Each of these important 
gentlemen was allowed to found a colony of fifty 
persons, and to own a tract of land sixteen miles in length on any 
shores or streams not yet occupied. Westward there was no limit placed 
on his possessions, which were allowed to run into the interior as far as 
they might — to the Pacific coast, had he but known there was a Pacific 
coast. His colony was to be established within four years from the 
time the land was granted him, and he was required, by just provision 
not usually employed, to pay the Indians for his land. His estate was 
called a "manor," and it was quite independent of colonial government. 
He was actually a lord of the soil, and lived in much elegance and with 
a full sense of importance, such as the men of his time and nation were 
apt to feel. These "patroons" as they were called, were allowed all 
privileges, except the manufacture of woolen or cotton goods, which 
the West India Company wished to keep a monopoly of. The company 




82 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

supplied the manors with negro slaves, which they imported from 
Guinea, but after a time this feudal system began to give way. There 
seemed to be something in the air of the New World which was opposed 
to the pretentions of nobility. Even the stately patroons came to see, 
after awhile, that they were regarded more as land-holders than as 
lords. 

It was so easy to see the injustice of giving a man such advantages 
over his fellows that the people would not patiently endure it. Nothing 
could more firml}^ prove that the plan of the government of Europe 
was, and is, false and wrong, since it fails to give men equal opportu- 
nities. It has existed so long in the Old World that it has almost come 
to seem right. Here, where it could be seen at its beginning, it was 
recognized as altogether wrong. The company had had a selfish reason 
for employing the feudal system in the New Netherlands. It believed 
that if it intrusted the care of immigration to the patroons it would be 
saved the expense of sustaining the government, and if each patroon 
protected his own property, with men established under him as serfs, 
there would be no need of any officers to do so. For, indeed, the people 
under these Dutch lords were little else than serfs. No "man or 
woman, son or daughter, man servant or maid servant," could leave a 
patroon' s servdce during the time he had agreed to remain, except by 
his written consent. On the other hand, the patroon was under no 
obligations to his people, but could do as he saw fit. It brought about 
evils almost as great as those of slavery. 

The right which was given to the patroons to settle upon any terri- 
tory not yet occupied, soon began to affect the great West India 
Company. They had wished to secure and retain a monopoly of trade, 
but by the short-sighted means employed they defeated this. A number 
of the Amsterdam directors availed themselves of this opportunity, and 
settled upon immense tracts of land, to which they gave high-sounding 
names. When it was too late the company perceived what it had done. 
The enterprising directors hastened to settle colonies upon their land, 
and so settlements were spread down to the South river, along the 
shores of what we now call Delaware Bay, and to the present town of 
Louiston, Delaware. One director went over to Cape May and bought 
a large tract of land there. One of the largest settlements was on 
Bear's Island, about twelve miles below Albany, to Smack's Island, and 
extended two days' journey inland. Afterward this estate was carried 
to the confluence of the Mohawk, and thus it was again extended. 
Another director acquired a vast quantity of land opposite ]\Ianhattan 



OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES. 83 

Island, and gave it the name of Hoboken — Hacking Island. This man 
afterward got the whole of Staten Island, and then the region where 
Jersey Cit}- now stands. Upon this estate the owner bestowed the name 
of Pavonia. 

The patroons were not satisfied to confine themselves to agriculture. 
The}' began a most profitable trading in peltries, so that the exports of 
Holland, in 1626, were valued at six thousand guilders. This, of 
course, was an infringement upon the rights of the Dutch Company, 
which drew up an order forbidding any one to deal in peltries, maize 
or wampum. The constant disputes which arose out of this greatly 
delayed the progress of New Netherland. 

The colony founded in Delaware, where Louiston now stands, was 
called Svvaanendael, or the Valley of Swans, and here a curious thing 
happened. A pillar had been set up bearing the anns of Holland, in 
token of possession. This an Indian chief saw, and thinking it would 
make delightful pipes, took it down and proceeded to make it up into 
them. But to this piece of symbolical tin the Dutch attached a great 
deal of importance, and the officer left in charge of the colony fretted 
and fumed, with many high-sounding Dutch words, until the Indians, 
thinking that their chief had committed a terrible crime, put him to 
death in hopes of regaining the friendship of the Dutch. The officer 
explained then that his wild gestures and oaths had simply meant that 
he wished to have the chief reproved. The Indians were naturally out 
of patience to find that they had made such a sacrifice to so little a 
purpose, and soon after, a party scattered themselves through the town 
in a friendly manner, and then fell upon and murdered ever>- person at 
the post, leaving nothing but the ruins of the burned houses. Peter 
Minuet, returning from Europe at this time, thought best to make a 
treaty of peace with these Indians, and with the representatives of all 
other tribes which he met. He went to Jamestown instead of visiting 
the Dutch colon}-, which was at that time without a governor. 

A short time after this Wouter Van Twiller was sent over from 
Holland as Governor. He had married a niece of Van Rensselaer, the 
chief of the patroons, and came in much state and great finery. He 
had just got settled in his manor at New Amsterdam when an English 
vessel came into the harbor. The officers of the vessel dined with Van 
Twiller and his ceremonious Dutch friends, and made a great show of 
courtesy, but they coolly announced their intention of going up the 
river to trade with the Indians. Of course, all the Dutchmen fell into 
a rage. They swore that the English should not trespass upon their 



84 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

grounds, and in a warlike fever caused the flag of Orange to be raised 
over the fort and saluted with three guns, while the English quietly 
sailed on their way up the stream. Van Twiller saw that more active 
measures would have to be taken, so he got all the people in the fort 
before his door and ordered a barrel of wine to be brought out. 

Upon this he mounted and set the example to his men of drinking 
glass after glass in defiance of the Englishmen. In the meantime the 
English had sailed out of sight. Several days after a force of soldiers 
did go after the scornful Englishmen and compelled them to return, 
but the Governor's reputation was gone. 

Though the settlement at Manhattan was twenty years old, it was 
still little more than a trading post. The company seemed to sap its 
strength. The interest was not so much in the soil as the money that 
could be got out of the country. Some new houses had been built 
which were firm and substantial, and three great wind-mills had been 
erected. About one hundred soldiers were well quartered. A good 
church had been built and shops established by various tradesmen. 
But it was lacking in that appearance of permanence and domesticity 
which characterized the New England colonies. 

Nothing could have been more crooked than the streets. The 
houses were of wood, with gable ends built of small black and yellow 
bricks, brought over from Holland. The doors and windows were 
many, and the date of the building of the house was put in iron letters 
in the gable; frequently the name of the builder was added. The 
Hollanders were noted for their cleanliness. Indeed, the people of 
Holland were scrupulously clean, at a time when the most cultivated 
people of England were walking on dirty rushes and had not yet 
learned to clean out their courts. The Dutch in the New Netherlands 
spim linen as they had done in the old country, and heaped up their 
closets with it. Their silver and brass- ware was kept perfectly polished. 
The floors were covered with white sand, on which figures were traced 
with a broom. Their stately furniture had claw-feet of metal. The 
time was told by hour-glasses and sun-dials, and neither of the time- 
pieces were allowed to keep the pompous Dutchmen in a rush. They 
ate plenty and drank plenty, knew how to tell a good story and how to 
laugh at it, and were forever having betrothal feasts, wedding banquets 
and gala days. Christmas, as we celebrate it, is a custom introduced 
by the Dutch. They taught us how to make and exchange colored 
eggs at Easter, and but for them, we should never have had the practice 
of New Year's calling. They loved to smoke and to drink, and their 



OLD WINE IN NEW BOTTLES. 85 

hospitality was very great. The reputation for this their descendants 
have never lost. Then, as now, the Dutch housekeepers were excellent 
cooks, and were especially noted for the delicious cakes and cookies 
which they made, and which everyone who went to their houses had to 
share with them. 

Though religion was not, as in Plymouth, the object of their lives, 
they went to church steadily and held their "dominies" in high esteem. 
There was a great deal of comfort, but little money, and wampum or 
beaver skins were frequently used in the place of money. The women 
dressed as they had done in Holland, with short, bright-colored, quilted 
petticoats, and knitted stockings of bright green, purple, or red. About 
their heads were white muslin caps, beneath which their hair was 
plastered down with pomatum. The portly Dutchman — and they were 
all portly — wore coats of linsey-woolsey, with wide skirts and large 
buttons of brass or silver. They sported several pairs of knee breeches, 
one over the other, with long, knitted stockings and immense buckles at 
tlieir knees and on their shoes. One of their chief industries was ship 
building. They were very proud of their vessels, and gave them 
remarkable names, such as ^^The Angel Gabriel'^ and ^'•Khig Solomon. '''' 

Van Twiller became so ridiculous in his management of the New 
Netherlands that he was removed, and William Kieft, who afterward 
acquired the name of "William the Testy," was sent out. He found 
things in a very bad state. There had been altogether too much 
drinking, too much smoking of pipes and telling of stories. The walls 
of the fort were down, the houses in need of repairs, the work shops in 
a useless condition. William the Testy began to straighten out things 
at once, not as may be imagined in the most amiable way. The 
company had bought back Pavonia and the Valley of the Swans, and 
thus checked some of the abuses of the patroons' rule. Affairs reached 
a crisis, for the people were becoming impatient at having first one 
monopoly and then another over them, and, therefore, the council of 
nineteen, at Old Amsterdam, decided that each man should have as 
much land as he could properly cultivate, and the Dutchmen were given 
free passage to New Netherland. Affairs began to improve imme- 
diately, not only along Staten Island, but away up to Albany. 

But with the English there had been many difficulties, and they 
were steadily encroaching upon the land claimed by the Dutch. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Davis' "Historj' of New Amsterdam." 
Fiction— P. H. Myres' "The First of the Knickerbockers.'' 
P. H. Myres' "The Young- Patroon." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



^nttfeiirltntbr J)h^$* 



THE GOVERNMENT OF WILLIAM THE TESTY — TROUBLE WITH THE 

INDIANS — THE NIGHT ATTACK ON PAVOXIA — REVENGE 

OF THE INDIANS — DISMISSAL OF KIEFT AND 

, ARRIVAL OF PETER STUYVESANT. 



(ILLIAM THE TESTY was no wiser in his 
treatment of the Indians than in his government 
of the Dutch. The frauds of which the trades- 
men were constantly guilty were not checked by 
him, and the serious mistake was made of 
placing guns in their hands. The Mohawks were 
enabled to arm four hundred men. This made 
the other Indian tribes vev}' envious, and even while the 
Mohawks remained friendly, the other tribes were 
gradually becoming hostile. When at last, in 1640, a 
a tax was laid upon the Indians, exacting corn, 
wampum, and furs from them, the injustice was enough 
to bring about an open war. The Raritan Indians 
destroyed the settlement on Staten Island, in revenge 
for which William the Testy offered a bounty for the head of every 
Raritan which should be brought to him. Later in the year — this was 
in 1641 — a young Indian chief murdered a farmer in retaliation for the 
killing of his uncle. Another private murder was committed by an 
Indian, and these two crimes aroused the enmity of all of the Dutch 
settlements. At the same time, the people considered it wisest and 
best to use policy. Governor Kieft, however, had nothing politic in 
his nature. He wished to send out an armed force against the Indians, 
and would have done so immediately had the people not protested. 
The tribes at the lower part of the river were not a pre\' to the enmity 
of their white neighbors alone, but were constantly harassed by the 
powerful Mohawks. Many of them had to flee from the coast into 




KNICKERBOCKER DAYS. 8/ 

those dark and interminable forests which stretch westward. Some of 
these unhappy Indians at last had to take refuge with the whites, so 
merciless were their Indian foes, and by some of the whites they were 
treated with great kindness. But certain of the twelve selectmen of 
New Amsterdam insisted upon attacking the Indians at Pavonia, 
across the river; and, though the wiser men of the community tried to 
dissuade them from this action, an anned force was sent to fight them 
in the dead of night. Perhaps one thousand Indians in the encamp- 
ment were sleeping quietly in their tents. So sudden was the onslaught 
that the unfortunate victims believed that it was the Indians from 
Fort Orange who had fallen upon them, and some of them actually fled 
to the Dutch settlement for protection, only to learn who their true 
enemies were. 

One hundred and twenty Indians were murdered that night, with 
horrible and indescribable tortures. The limbs and arms were hacked 
from the little children. They were bound to boards, then cut to 
pieces. Some of them were thrown into the river to make their 
parents go after them, where they were kept at bay, by the muskets of 
the Dutch, until they were drowned. Those who escaped, and came 
out in the morning to beg for food, were killed in cold blood. Some 
were drowned, and some burned to death. The troops, marching back 
to the fort in the morning, were received with many praises. 

Then, over all the colonies, broke a wave of war and outrage. 
Evers'where in New Netherland, farmers were killed and wives and 
children carried away into a terrible imprisonment. Now and then a 
sort of a half peace was made, only to be broken — first on one side, 
and then on the other. Late in the summer the tribes on the 
Hudson Highlands began an open warfare, and made it impossible 
for trading boats to come up the river. Ann Hutchinson, the witty 
woman preacher, was killed near New Rochelle. Savages crept into 
the veiy^ villages and murdered men in the twilight. The people had 
no longer any patience with Kieft. They felt that his terrible cruelty 
had been responsible for all this suffering. He appointed a council to 
help him decide upon this difficult matter; and, under this council,, 
a large force of soldiers were armed and thoroughly drilled, with John 
Underbill at their head. John Underbill was a Massachusetts captain. 
A petition was sent to the states general of Holland for help — a 
petition eloquent with fear and suffering. Through the winter which 
followed, they lived in a terrible state of anxiety, crowded together at 
the southern end of the island, and being afraid to venture beyond their 



88 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

own doors. Occasionally, the Dutch would sally out and succeed in 
making a small skirmish, which onh- added to the Indians' hatred. 

There was a little settlement called Hempstead, on Long Island, where 
a number of English families w^ere settled. These had been exceed- 
ingly annoyed by the Indians near them, and prayed that they might be 
protected by the Dutch. Consequently, one hundred and twenty 
soldiers made an attack on two Indian villages, which they sacked, 
killing more than one hundred braves, and carrying some to Manhattan, 
where they were tortured. 

Later, the little army marched through the snow-covered forests 
upon the principal village of the Long Island Indians. This they fired, 
and furnished light to do a most murderous deed. Only sixty-eight of 
seven hundred Indians escaped. The Dutch had fifteen men wounded. 
After this, the proud spirit of the Indians was broken, and, when a 
fresh force of one hundred and thirty soldiers was sent to New Nether- 
land, the Indians sulkily retreated to their forests. 

These soldiers were a terrible burden to the poverty-stricken settle- 
ment, and Kieft made the great mistake of taxing beer for their sup- 
port. This was the one thing under the sun which the Dutchmen 
would not have taxed, and they begged for Kieft' s dismissal. They 
had to wait a whole year before their prayer was answered. In the 
meantime, the Indians lurked under the very palisades which they had 
built for their protection, and which stood on a line with the present 
Wall street, which, of course, took its name from that ancient fortifica- 
tion. The following spring the Indians signed a treaty of peace with the 
Dutch, and gathering upon the spot still known as the Battery, smoked 
the pipe of peace with them. In the wars of the last few years sixteen 
hundred of the Indians had been killed, and nearly all of the Dutch 
settlements had been destroyed. In all the province there were no more 
than three hundred men capable of bearing arms, and the settlers 
prayed for a new Governor, who should bring to them peace and 
quietness. 

In the Connecticut valley, the English had steadily crowded upward, 
until Dutch control was gone. Fort Nassau, however, was still retained 
by the Dutch, and established as an important Indian trading post. 

On May 27, 1647, Peter Stuyvesant, the new Governor of the New 
Netherlands, arrived. He was an old soldier of bravery and experience, 
and lost a leg in his country's service. He wore, in the place of that 
member, a wooden leg bound with silver. The solemn burghers met 
him with uncovered heads, and he allowed them, it is said, to stand in 




' 




,/' 








j^ffl 









X 










r 


/ 


/ 


/ 
/ 


'/J 


35 








/ JH^ 


i« 








//^H 




,./////.... 


.^ 





KNICKERBOCKER DAYS. 89 

the sun for several hours in this way, and seated himself with great 
ceremony while they remained standing. These king-like airs were 
not well received, but, in a short time, the honest vigor of the man 
began to be felt in the colony, and his very tyranny was in happy 
contrast to the former governor's weakness. The men who had brought 
a complaint against Kieft were not sustained by Stuyvesant. He said 
it was treason to petition against magistrates, very wisely thinking that 
it would not do to allow such an example to pass unreproved, for 
he knew that he himself might soon meet with popular disfavor. The 
men who had complained of Kieft' s abuses were tried and condemned 
to suffer severe punishments 

The West India Company was no longer much interested in the 
colony, and left the severe and angry-natured Stuyvesant to do as he 
pleased. As for Kieft, he started to sail for Holland, but his ship was 
pounded to pieces on the Welsh rocks, and, at the last, he was seized 
with repentance for the murders which he had committed and the 
cruelty with which he had treated his friends. The two men who had 
been persecuted, because of their complaints against him to the 
Governor at Holland, were on the ship with him, and he called them to 
him, saying: "Friends, I have been unjust toward you; can you forgive 
me?" 

Governor Stuyvesant began to lay heavy taxes upon the people, and, 
though in many ways they lived safely and well under him, with a 
sense of security in his firmness and courage, they nevertheless felt that 
he was an unjust Governor. He was assisted in his affairs by a board 
of nine men. These men were only allowed to advise the Governor. 
They could make no laws, and give no orders without his approval. 
One of the first things which Governor Stuyvesant tried to do, was to 
come to a pleasant understanding with the English; but though the 
English wrote polite letters, they were not inclined to remove their 
boundaries farther from the Dutch, and they even claimed that they 
held the first title to Long Island. Finally, a Dutch captain seized an 
English ship, and, against this high-handed act. Governor Eaton, of 
New Haven, protested vigorously. Henceforth, he and Governor 
Stuyvesant wrote hot and furious letters to each other, and the two 
Governors quarreled about things which school-boys might have been 
ashamed to get angry over. He got in disfavor with his own colonists 
at the same time, by putting a check upon their tradings with the 
Indians, for, in spite of his forbiddance, they sold the Indians arms and 
ammunition. It was through this cause that he got into his fierce 



90 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

quarrel with the young patroon, Van Rensselaer, for the old patroon of 
that name was now dead. He could not well control a lord owning 
such vast extent of territory, and used to exercising such power, without 
getting into trouble. When the young patroon defied Stuyvesant's 
authority, the Governor sent a squad of soldiers to enforce it. These 
he ordered to take stone and timber from the patroon' s land for the 
purpose of repairing the fortifications at Fort Orange, but the people of 
the village around about, who were lo}-al to the young lord, would not 
permit such intrusion, even from their great Governor, and, for once, 
Peter the Headstrong failed to have his way. So, with many jealousies 
and small envies, the next few years of the New Netherland colonies 
went on. Any one wishing to study the history of New York can find 
plenty, both amusing and instructive, in the pages of the old State 
chronicles, but, for one who wishes to take a broad and hasty view of 
national history, it is hardly worth while to linger over the foolish 
quarrels and pretensions of these Dutch burghers. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
Fiction — Cooper's "Water- Witch . ' ' 

J. H. Paulding's "The Dutchman's Fireside. 
"Woolfert's Roost" and "Rip Van Winkle," from 
Washington Irving's "Sketch Book." 



CHAPTER XIX. 



THE MASSACHUSETTS BAY COMPANY — THE TRIALS OF THE FIRST YEAR- 
ARRIVAL OF ROGER WILLIAMS — JOHN ELIOT — PERSECU- 
TION OF WILLIAMS — HIS SETTLEMENT 
AT PROVIDENCE. 




^NE of the most important colonies has noc yet 
been spoken of, for, though it had much influence 
in forming the United States, it was not made 
until June, 1629, when the other settlements were 
well under way. Six vessels, with their crews, 
four hundred and six men, women and children, one 
hundred and forty head of cattle, forty goats, and a 
large quantity of provisions, tools, arms and building 
materials, left England, and arrived at Salem, Massa- 
chusetts. It will be remembered that a few rude 
buildings had been put here by people who, for one 
reason or another, saw fit to leave the colony at 
-/ Plymouth. Like the Plymouth colony, this had a 

deep and dignified purpose, and for this reason it and 
the Plymouth colony are the best remembered and the most talked of to 
this day. TheSe English wanderers did not come to make money. They 
came to worship God as they saw fit. They were Puritans. Not like the 
Puritans of Plymouth, pilgrims who had journeyed from one place to 
another, but people who had protested against the practices of the 
Established Church of England and who had found it necessary to seek 
the new land if they wished to live the life of their liking. They had 
come out under the royal patent of the Massachusetts Bay Company, 
which had been formed at Dorchester. John Endicott was made 
Governor. He was a stern man, who, having made up his mind that 
a certain thing was best to do, never yielded or gave way. He showed no 



92 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

mercy toward any one who broke his rules. He was very honorable a.nd 
straightforward, but he wished everyone to be of his way of thinking. 
This was shown by his treatment of the Reverend Ralph Smith, one of 
the several ministers who came over in the fleet. It is hard to find in 
what small particular Mr. Smith differed from his fellows, but he had 
some shade of belief which did not agree with their' s, and he was not 
suffered to stay in the colony, but was obliged to take his family and go 
to Nantasket, where he became so poor and underwent such hardships 
that the Plymouth people took pity on him and invited him to their 
settlement. Before the colony had been established six weeks, a day of 
fasting and prayer was held. One of the ministers who had come over 
to aid as counsel to Endicott was chosen pastor, and another teacher. 
A delegation was invited from Ph-mouth to witness the ceremony of 
establishing the government of the colony. The ver\' life and conver- 
sation of men was to be subject to the rules laid down. The book of 
common prayer, belonging to the Church of England, was discarded, 
and a covenant was set up according to directions found in the New 
Testament. 

It was hard to get all of the ministers who came over as counsel, to 
agree. One of them went back to England, as he could not approve of 
the methods of the Reformed Church. Two of his followers, John and 
Samuel Brown, men of a good deal of importance, would have nothing 
to do with the new church, but called about them all who still had 
sympathy with the Church of England, and held separate meetings, 
worshiping after the Episcopalian method. Of course, Endicott would 
have none of this. He summoned the Browns before liim. The 
Browns held, that if men had come to America to escape intolerance, 
they should not be persecuted because of their religion, but the 
ministers held that they had come because they wished to escape the 
sinful corruptions of the church, and the Browns were sent back 
to England. Thus the Massachusetts Bay colony showed at the first, 
why it was started, and how it intended to govern. It did not wish to 
be governed by the council in London, nor looked after by a corrupt 
church, and a still more corrupt court. They therefore begged for 
a transfer of government, and in the course of a few weeks they were 
allowed to become an independent colony. This showed great courage 
and force of character, for the protection of the King was thought by 
all l)ut these men to be a great thing. 

Endicott and his friends had the pluck to take matters upon their 
own shoulders. It was necessary now to make new appointments, and 



THE OLD BAY SETTLEMENT. 93 

John Winthrop was elected Governor, with six men as council. John 
Winthrop was a lawyer of good birth, with quite a fortune for that day. 
He had a gentle nature and great tenderness of heart, though he did 
not lack in firmness. He was in England at the time of his election, 
but sailed immediately for Salem. He found the colony had suffered 
from the experiences which met most settlers during their first winter 
in America. Eighty of them had died, and they had many tales of woe 
to tell. Within a short time one thousand persons followed Winthrop 
to Salem. Settlements were made at many places along the coast, and 
quite a large one at Charlestown. Winthrop thought it best to 
strengthen his hold on the possessions of the colony by settling all 
along the coast. Some of them went up the Charles, and the beginnings 
of Dorchester, Medford, Watertown, Cambridge, Roxbury, Lynn and 
Charlestown were made. Boston Common was settled on because of 
the excellent spring of water there, and Ann Pollard, a merry young 
girl, was the first person, according to tradition, to leap ashore where 
Boston now stands. 

There was a great deal of sickness in all of these settlements — 
partly from want of proper shelter, partly from the malaria, which 
always comes with the clearing of ground, and more than all, from the 
want of a variety of wholesome food. In Salem, some had reached such 
a bad condition that a day of fasting and prayer was ordered. Their 
prayers seemed to meet with prompt answer, for Captain William 
Pierce, who had made so many journeys over the Atlantic, appeared at 
the right moment with a large supply of provisions. On that ship was 
a man named Roger Williams. Williams was a young man about thirty 
years of age. On all subjects he was thoroughly radical. The condi- 
tion of his mind then was like that of most Americans now. He 
believed that every man had a right to do a thing in his own way. He had 
no respect for anything simply because it was established and approved 
of by the majority. He must have been an attractive young fellow, 
with a good deal of personal magnetism. Governor Winthrop liked 
him very well, but he shocked the Governor by his out-spoken ways. 
He was invited to act as teacher of the Boston church, but upon 
examination it was found that he did not agree with their religious 
beliefs. That ended it, of course. He would not even join the church, 
because the members would not openly express their repentance for ever 
having communed with the Church of England. He held, too, that 
the magistrate had no right to punish a breach of the Sabbath, and that 
civil government and religious government should not be confounded. 



94 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

His eloquence was attractive, and he was chosen minister of the Boston 
church, in spite of these heresies. Endicott, down at Salem, heard of 
this, and gave them no peace until he was driven from the church and 
had taken refuge at Plymouth. Governor Bradford had no fault to find 
with him, and he did much active work in the course of the next year. 

Little by little the Massachusetts Bay colony grew into a common- 
wealth. It is true that it had enemies. There was one gay Sir 
Christopher Gardiner, who laid conspiracies against Winthrop, but he 
was finalh^ arrested and sent back to England. Morton, of Merrimont, 
had never forgotten the time when Endicott had grimly marched over 
and pulled down his May-pole, around which he and his hard-drinking 
friends were dancing with a company of Indian girls. This was a little 
colony called Merrimont, of which Morton was the leading spirit. 
Captain Standish had been obliged to take this man prisoner for his 
disorderly conduct, and to send him over to England in the custody of 
John Oldham, who had worked himself into favor with the Puritans 
again. Sir Ferdinando Gorges also quarreled with the Massachusetts 
Bay Company about patents, and the Browns were still sulky, but none 
of these did the colony any great harm. The ministers largely con- 
trolled matters, and to be a good citizen, according to the status of the 
colony, was also to be religious. 

One of these reverend gentlemen, John Eliot, of Roxbur}^, was 
renowned for his saintliness of character, and the work he did among 
Indians. For years he studied the Indian dialects, and was finally able 
to preach to them in their own tongue. He made an entire translation 
of the Bible into the Indian tongue, one of the most important philo- 
logical works ever published in the United States. Copies of it are 
still extant, and sell at fabulous prices to collectors of Americana. He 
converted a whole tribe of Indians, who were known afterward as the 
pra}ing Indians, and for whom the rest of the savages had a great 
contempt. Eliot's work was very difficult. The Indian was strangely 
lacking in moral sense, and it was necessary to teach him many things, 
which an European would know by instinct, about matters of right and 
wrong. Even the colonists seem not to have thought very well of the 
praying Indians. They preferred to have the native left in his savage 
state. 

Another minister of especial note was John Cotton, a man of such 
winning and triumphant eloquence that he influenced all who came 
near him. After a time Roger Williams came back to Salem, and 
immediately got into trouble. Governor Bradford, his friend, was 



THE OLD BAY SETTLEMENT. 95 

bound to admit that Roger had some ver}' strange ways of thinking and 
acting, and he warned the church at Salem against him. But the 
young man was so attractive that he overcame prejudices of this sort, 
and the Salem brethren took him into the church, where he beean 
prophecying. His prophecies were not liked by the Salem people, and 
they arrested him for a treatise which he had written while in Ply- 
mouth, relating to the Indian title to the country, for he did not believe 
in the expulsion of the Indians. Nothing could be proved to his harm, 
however, on that charge. But Mr. Williams could not keep quiet. 
He certainly had very peculiar ideas. He convinced all of the women 
that it was immodest for them to go out of their houses unless they 
were veiled. Very naturally this was approved of neither by young 
men nor old men, and Mr. Cotton, the melting preacher, was called 
upon to persuade the wives and virgins that it was not necessary for 
them to hide their fair faces. Mr. Cotton went further, and repeated 
his sermon in the Boston lecture course, where Endicott fiercely got up 
and quarreled with him on the subject, and the debate got so hot that 
the Governor had to put a stop to it. Endicott was a fervid follower of 
Williams by this time. He went around looking everywhere for signs 
of anti-Christ, and actually cut St. George's cross out of the flag of 
England one time when he found it in Salem streets. The English 
soldiers very naturally refused to march after a flag which had been 
shorn of its sign of victory, and Endicott' s rash act made such a disturb- 
ance among the soldiers that he was dismissed from the council, and it 
was some time before he was readmitted. 

Williams and his friends asked the council for a grant of land at 
Marblehead, but it was not granted them. It was the first time that a 
church had been refused land to build on, and, of course, it only 
strengthened Roger Williams' following. Endicott' s protest was so wild 
that he was imprisoned until he was ready to apologize. Williams was 
accused of unheard-of heresies. He held that the State had no right to 
meddle with a man's conscience or religious opinions. He was right, 
but he was also disagreeable. He would not bend to the advice of the 
court, nor take the warnings of the other ministers, and he was finally 
banished, though he was allowed to remain in town until spring. 
There was an attempt to put him on board a ship and send him to 
England, but he escaped and fled to the woods. There he lived, on the 
best of terms with the Indians, for whom he had a great respect and 
affection. His dealings with them were upon a basis of equality, 
Canonicus, chief of the Narragansetts, gave Williams a large tract of 



96 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

land, but the generous minister kept little for himself, and he gave 
away his lands to all that he thought in want. The place where he 
lived he called Providence, in his gratitude to God for having escaped 
from his enemies. 

Many persons persecuted for their religious beliefs in the different 
colonies came to live with him. Among these was Ann Hutchinson, a 
woman with a high sense of humor and of independence, who had 
mimicked some of the dry old preachers in Boston, and had drawn about 
her a number of people fond of a more simple and straight forward 
doctrine. Ann Hutchinson, although she is almost forgotten, was one 
of the most remarkable women of the early histor>' of this country. 
The new colony, after much trouble, obtained a charter under the name 
of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Never was there a more 
radical man than Roger Williams. The laws of his colony were based 
upon a plan of perfect religious toleration. He held that the most 
Paganish, Jewish, Turkish or anti-Christian conscience should be pro- 
tected in his colony. Such a thing was unheard of. It was new to the 
world. Thus was Rhode Island settled. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Arnold's "Rhode Island." 
Fiction — Miss Sedgwick's "Hope Leslie." 
Holland's "Bay Path." 
Longfellow's "Rhyme of Sir Christopher." 



CHAPTER XX. 



)\t ]|^auaga$ nf iimfeaJicn. 



THE AMERICAN INDIAN — THE DESTRUCTION OF THE BLOCK ISLAND 

INDIANS THE EXTINCTION OF THE PEQUOT TRIBE 

THE FEDERATION OF THE ENGLISH 
COLONIES 



HE white man's first business in America was to 
destroy the forests. Before he could build him a 
home he laid his axe at the foot of a tree. From 
the ver}- first, he showed how he differed from the 
Indian, for the Indian lived in the forest; he wished 
to preserve it. The game in it was his means of 
livelihood. The wilder the streams, the better the 
fishing, and the only sort of warfare which he knew had 
to be conducted in the solitudes and fastnesses of the 
woods. His superstition had made it holy to him; his 
loves had made it dear, and from the first, the most 
thoughtful of the Indians had looked with great dread 
upon the growing power of the white man, and wondered 
if it could be possible for two nations so different in 
ever}'tliing to live together in harmony. In the begin- 
ning, although the Indian was subtile in his dealings with his enemies, 
he was true to his friends. He had the naturalness of a child. When 
he gave his word, he could be trusted. He could endure pain with a 
braver}' onh- equaled by the old heroes of Sparta. In him was a love 
of liberty that centuries of injustice has not been able to crush, and in 
certain directions his mind was trained in a manner unequaled by any 
except the mystics of Asiatic India. He knew every sign of the forest, 
and the most timid animal had no match for his cunning. The soli- 
tudes were an open book to him, and the best power of his intellect was 
spent in evolving a philosophy from its pages. He held mental and 
moral qualities in high esteem, and was willing himself to do but little 
manual labor, leaving that for the v>^omeii of his tribe. Few nations in 




98 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

the world have been found so swift of foot, so keen of sight and hearing, 
and so clever in detecting signs which no others might see. He was 
not without imagination or poetr}-, and for him, mountains, woods, lakes 
and streams were filled with spirits, good and bad, who watched over his 
destiny, or thwarted him in his ambitions. His life satisfied him, and 
so did his relig^ion. It is not strans^e that the religion which the 
Englishmen offered him in place of his own was received with coldness. 

The lives of the Puritans did not set a good example to the Indians. 
Crimes of a certain nature were very frequent among them, and it is 
certain that the Christians did not teach the Indians honesty. Too 
much theology and too little religion naturally confused the Indian as 
to what the Christian faith really was, so when they saw themselves 
being driven inland, mile after mile, they knew that it meant the 
extinction of their race. They were forced to leave behind them the 
places which they cherished with a love almost fierce in its nature. 
The places where their dead lay buried, the monuments to which, day 
by day, the children added a stone, must all be left behind. The sea 
was no longer theirs. They .saw that in a short time there would be 
nothing for them to do but march toward the setting sun, leaving the 
beloved sea behind them. 

This brooding hatred and distrust had its results. Captain Oldham 
had once more been taken into the favor of the Puritans, and when his 
boat was found drifting at sea, with a band of Indians upon it and his 
dead body on the deck, the colonists made up their minds to revenge 
his death; so in August of 1636, nearly one hundred men, in five small 
vessels, sailed from Boston to Block Island — for it was the Block Island 
Indians who had murdered Oldham. In command of this expedition 
was John Endicott, the sternest Puritan of them all. To land at Block 
Island, even in fair weather, was a difficult thing. To do it in a 
heavy wind was a most dangerous one. Any seaman would shrink 
from it, but the Boston force did it in the midst of a shower of arrows 
from the Indians. The invaders stayed upon the island two days, laying- 
waste the two hundred acres of land under cultivation, burning the 
maize already harvested, as well as the wigwams and all their furniture. 
Not one of the Englishmen was harmed, but such of the Indians as 
were left alive remained upon the island without shelter or food, or 
canoes in which to escape. Most of them perished wretchedly, but a 
few must have lived, because much later than this, the Indians of Block 
Island are referred to. 

Endicott took his men to the mainland near the mouth of what is 



THE RAVAGES OF CIVILIZATION. 99 

now the Thames ri\'er. Proud of his victory over the Block Islanders, 
he wished to take re\'enge upon the Pequot Indians, for their murder of 
a Puritan named Stone. He asked that the Pequot chief be brought to 
him, but the chief would not come, and the Englishmen and Indians 
had some engagements, in which the Indians suffered severely. After 
burning the Indian villages, Endicott's men coasted on up to the mouth 
of the Connecticut river, where there was a fort under the command of 
Captain Lion Gardiner, who was much distressed when Endicott stopped 
there. He had tried to keep on friendly terms with the Indians, and was 
much more afraid of starving to death than of being killed. Events 
show that Gardiner was right. The Indians were greatly irritated and 
were determined to be revenged for the injustice done to the Block 
Islanders. They came upon the English at all sorts of unexpected 
places, and destroyed a large part of the corn which Gardiner had 
planted. It was hardly safe for the men to venture without the fort, 
for the Indians lurked about it constantly — never seen, but frequently 
felt. Cattle were killed or stolen, and the settlements near were greatly 
harassed. Men wen,t to church carr^'ing their weapons in their hands, 
and were afraid to labor in their own }'ards. Both men and women 
were fallen upon in the fields and murdered or carried into captivity. 
Had the Indians wished, they might have extenninated the English. 

Roger Williams saw the great danger. No man knew better than 
he the strength and qualities of the people on both sides. His diplomacy 
alone prevented a concerted attack by all the Indian tribes upon the 
colonies. Governor Winthrop and the rest were very glad to receive 
help from the man whom they had driven out in the dead of night and 
of winter because of his daring to differ from them. The efforts of 
Williams secured the friendship of the Narragansetts, who had long 
been enemies of the Pequots. The Massachusetts General Court 
decided at their May meeting to go to the help of the people in the 
Connecticut valley. They knew that the red cloud of war might sweep 
on to Massachusetts. Feeling that it was a common peril, the Bay 
people called upon Plymouth for help, but Plymouth held back. She 
had certain quarrels to pick with the Bay government. Both Massa- 
chusetts and Plymouth could take time to think. They were not — like 
the dwellers on the plantation of the Connecticut — being murdered in 
their beds, by their well-sweeps, and in their doorways* 

But in May, a force of ninety men, under the charge of Captain 
John Mason, sailed from Hartford for Fort Saybrook. Here they were 
joined by the friendly Uncas, the great Mohegan chief, with a body of 



I GO THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Indians. Mason decided to attack the Pequots in the rear, although this 
was in disobedience to the orders of the general court. In pursuance of 
this plan, Mason left the fort and bore away for Narragansett Bay. The 
Pequots thought he was retreating, and late into the night they sang 
and boasted that their superior numbers had put the woman-hearted 
Englishmen to flight. But Mason landed near the entrance of Narra- 
gansett Bay, and marched eighteen or twenty miles distant on the 
Pequot frontier. The Narragansetts had a fort here, and Mason was 
anxious to make sure of their friendship. On the 25th of May the 
little army made the tedious march through the woods, with little to eat 
and less to drink, and encamped at night at the head of the Mystic 
river. Near that was the principal Pequot fort, crowded with men, 
women and children. 

Very early in the morning, when the east was first streaked with 
light, Mason awoke his men. Uncas, the Mohegan chief, guided them 
near to the palisaded village. There seemed to have been no sentinels 
about the fort, and, but for the barking of a dog, the Indians would not 
have known that the Englishmen were upon them. A part of Mason's men 
rushed in on one side, and the rest upon the other. The Indians could 
do but little, and, mad with terror, tried to rush for the woods, but there 
was little chance of escape. Mason was not satisfied with the rapid work 
that guns and swords were doing, but cried, ' 'we must burn them, ' ' 
and snatching a brand from one of the smouldering fires at which the 
evening meal had been prepared, thrust it among the dead leaves that 
carpeted the wigwams. Some of the Indians, rather than die at the hands 
of their hated enemies, ran with a pride past all taming into the flames 
and perished there. Others, seeing that their wives and children could not 
escape, threw themselves upon the swords of the Englishmen, who 
stood in an unbroken circle around the \'illage, and behind whom was a 
yet sterner and more cruel company of their own countrymen. 

It was hardly an hour from the time of the attack when the burned 
and bleeding bodies of nearly seven hundred Indians lay among their 
smoking wigwams. Only two of the English were killed. 

There was another Indian village belonging to the Pequots not many 
miles distant, and in this there were still three hundred and fifty warriors. 
A handful of men had escaped the morning massacre, and flying to this 
village, told their countrymen the particulars of the morning slaughter. 
Mad with sorrow and anger, these were soon upon the trail of the 
English. Mason's men, exhausted with the terrible fight, a third of 
them wounded, and all suffering from hunger and the intense thirst which 



THE RAVAGES OF CIVILIZATION. lOI 

follows such excitement, were in a ver}- weakened condition, but they 
were able to repulse the Indians, and in the course of the day were met 
by a reinforcement of forty men from Boston. 

The Pequots were now the enemies of all the other tribes of Massa- 
chusetts and Connecticut, for the Narragansetts and Mohegans allied 
themselves with the stronger side. This the Indians always did in war- 
fare. So the Pequots were hunted mercilessly through the forests. 
They hid themselves in rocks, and caves, and bushes, and wherever 
they were found they were killed. The worst of it was that they were 
seldom killed immediately, but were tortured in the most terrible ways. 
Twenty young Englishmen sometimes pulled the legs and arms of an 
Indian from their sockets by sheer brutal force. Few of the women 
and children were killed, but were sent to the West India Islands as 
slaves. In July, the remnant of this tribe were ensnared in a swamp. 
Here they fought like wild beasts, with the ferocity of despair, but 
most of them were killed or taken prisoners, and such as were left met 
with a fate still more hateful to them. They were permitted to become 
either Mohegans or Narragansetts, and lost their individuality as a tribe. 
They were a brave race of warriors, and their pitiable downfall and 
overthrow cannot but touch the heart of any who admire courage and 
patriotism. A few who fled to the Mohawks were treacherously killed, 
and their scalps sent to Governor Winthrop as a sign of Mohawk friend- 
ship. 

The Pequot war lasted five months. This great tribe, numbering 
over one thousand warriors, was extinguished by a force of two hun- 
dred Englishmen. It is true that the Narragansetts and Mohegans had 
helped them, but they were never to be relied upon. There is no more 
striking proof of the superiority of civilized warfare. 

After this, for many years, the Indians of Connecticut were subdued. 
They were sometimes annoying, but seldom dangerous, and while the 
Dutch were suffering all the terrors of Indian conflict, the New 
England settlements remained for forty years in a state of comparative 
peace. 

The heavy expense of this war had fallen upon the people of the 
Connecticut valley, and the colony was badly in debt. Its strongest 
and best men had been called to military service, leaving the women to 
look after the farms, and it seemed as if there might be a great lack of 
food for the coming winter. Active measures had to be taken to 
prevent this, and every kernel of corn was carefully gathered and 
preserved. Companies of home soldiers were well drilled at every 



I02 THE STORY OK AMERICA. 

settlement, and the young colon}' had begun to feel its strength 
and firmness so well now that within eighteen months from this time 
the new government adopted a constitution. This constitution was 
very simple and eloquent, and said that the people of Connecticut 
recognized no allegiance to any other power, not e\-en that of England. 
It constituted a popular government, in which all the freemen were 
equal before the law, promising to maintain the liberty of the gospel of 
our Lord Jesus. 

For two hundred years this was the basis of the law of Connecticut. 
John Haynes and Edward Hopkins served as Governors for many years, 
sometimes one and sometimes the other holding the position. The life 
of every man and woman in the community was carefully watched by 
the magistrate, and no license of speech was permitted. No one was 
allowed to say what he or she thought about the minister's last sennon, 
or allowed to laugh at the peculiarities of his or her neighbors. From 
the ver\' strictness of the laws, now and then some man or woman 
broke out into a strange frenzy of viciousness or crime, which would be 
seldom heard of in a less severe community, where light amusements 
and diversions are allowed. The stern monotony of life seemed 
to make the heart prey upon itself, and the people broke into vice to 
supply the necessar)' excitement. In 1643 '^ confederation was made, 
embracing Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut and New Haven. 
Their distance from each other was so great that it was not practical to 
have a single government for them all, but they had desired to link the 
English plantations together, that they might defend themselves against 
the people of several nations and strange languages who were settling 
around them. England, occupied with her own troubles, could pay 
little attention to her colonies, so they looked for no further help from 
the home country. The main object . of this confederation was an 
offensive and defensive league in case of war. In all other things each 
colony held the right of self-government. This was the germ of the 
Federal Union, which has grown great among the nations as the United 
States of America. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Pensliallow's "Indian Wars in New England." 
BlOclRAi'HY— Winthrop's "Life and Letters." 

Fiction— L. M. Child's "First Settlers of New England." 



CHAPTER XXI. 



fnh nl i\t '^x^^kms. 



THE RELIGIOUS LAW OF BOSTON — GORTON AND HIS BELIEFS — THE 

SETTLEMENT AT SHEWANET — PERSECUTION OF THE GORTON- 

ITES — PERSECUTION OF THE BAPTISTS — THE OBTAINING 

OF A ROYAL CHARTER FOR RHODE ISLAND AND THE 

PROVIDENCE PLANTATIONS. 




HE Boston people had come to America to worship 
God in what they believed to be the right way. 
If that was the right way, all other ways must be 
wrong, and they allowed no one to differ from 
them in the smallest shade of belief. When Ann. 
Hutchinson was driven from among them, they 
had hoped that all these ' 'notable errors' ' of belief were 
done with, and that God would reward them with con- 
tinued peace for driving such heresies from their 
midst. Indeed, they believed that God devoted the 
most of His time and attention to them, and the mis- 
fortunes of all others were counted to their own glory. 
If any one who had opposed them or criticised them 
fell sick or met with misfortune, they believed it another 
sign of the Lord's care. To be a citizen, it was jBrst 
necessar)' to be a member of the church, and the court 
of justice was little more than a religious examining seat. If any one 
made remarks upon the preached word or showed any contempt of the 
preacher, he was called a "Wanton Gospeller," and stood for two hours 
openly upon a block four feet high, on a lecture day, with a paper on 
his breast with "iV Wanton Gospeller" written thereon in capital 
letters. It was this firm belief in their own righteousness which caused 
the people of Boston to persecute so many people at different times on 
account of religious differences. 

One of the men who suffered most from this unforgiving spirit was 



104 ' '^^E STORY OF AMERICA. 

Samuel Gorton. No one of a later day was able to tell just what this 
man believed, but it was certain that he believed something different 
from the people around him. He was one of the early settlers of 
Portsmouth, Rhode Island, and was given to advertising new theories, 
and to standing by them in a manner not so wise as it was determined. 
He visited both Boston and Plymouth, and while at Plymouth got into 
his first fight with the authorities because he defended a servant of his 
own family who so far forgot herself as to smile in church, and who was 
therefore declared to be a heretic. At length he was driven out, 
and, very naturally, went to x\cquidneck, Roger Williams' settlement, 
where ever>'one was welcomed. In the year 1641, Gorton bought land 
at Pawtuxet. This was where Cranston now stands, and was within 
the bounds of Providence. Of the people of Providence, Governor 
Winthrop had a very poor opinion. He said that some of them were 
against the baptizing of infants, and that others denied all magistracy, 
and claimed that Gorton was their captain. 

Roger Williams managed to keep them (the Gortonites) peaceful for 
a time, but at length arguments waxed so hot between them and their 
neighbors that blows followed. A man named Arnold, and a dozen 
others, appealed to Massachusetts for aid against Gorton and his friends, 
who seemed to have had certain socialistic ideas in regard to land, ver}- 
offensive to people used to complicated government. Boston, however, 
refused to send help to the people of Pawtuxet, since they did not live 
under the government of Massachusetts, as both parties had found 
Boston so little to their liking that they had run awa}- from it. They 
were not willing to submit themselves to its government again even to 
win their point, but at length the quarrels grew so hot that they sent 
again to Boston for help. This appeal was sent out by four men, of 
whom Arnold was one. These four men submitted themselves to 
Boston, with their lands and possessions, and as these were very 
desirable, Boston consented to give them help. Having got the lands 
in this cheap way, the Massachusetts magistrates gave the four men 
leave, if they had a just title to anything which Gorton and his friends 
possessed, to proceed against them in court. This the>- did immediately, 
the case being, of course, decided in favor of Arnold and his friends. 
By this very simple method, Massachusetts gained possession of that 
beautiful garden of the Narragansett. 

There were about twelve men of the Gorton party, and these imme- 
diately deserted their homes and gardens in Pawtuxet, and moved away 
in .search of a new place. They settled about twelve miles south 



THE PRIDE OF THE RIGHTEOUS. IO5 

of Providence, calling their settlement Shewanet. Before going there 
Samuel Gorton sent a remarkable letter to the Boston magistrates, 
which set forth all of their religious beliefs. The magistrates seemed to 
know what it meant, for they found twenty-six blasphemous particulars 
in it, though no one since has been able to tell what Gorton's theolog}' 
was. The land at Shewanet was bought of Miantonomo, the young 
sachem of the Narragansetts, and it was so far from the settlement 
of any one else that they hoped they might be left in peace, but Arnold 
was not the man to let a personal matter drop so quietly, and he 
induced the Indians to say that they had been forced to sign the deed 
giving title to Gorton's people, and two small sachems, who were hired 
to tell this lie, were received as subjects of the Massachusetts govern- 
ment. That these two new subjects might be properly protected, the 
twelve men of Shewanet were asked to appear before the general court 
at Boston. This, Gorton and his friends refused to do, and the colony 
sent back a threat which showed the Shewanet people that they were in 
danger of their lives, A band of soldiers and Indians charged upon 
the village, and the troops did not disdain to level their muskets upon 
women and children. Some of the people ran for the woods; others 
waded out into the river to reach a boat, which some Providence people, 
in pity for their condition, had brought to the place. Though none of 
them died at the time, a number died afterward from the exposure and 
suflfering. The men had not supposed that the Boston troops would 
trouble their wives and children, and had fortified themselves in one of 
their log houses. They stood the siege for several days, but without firing 
a shot — for they did not believe in the shedding of blood. Their 
houses were pillaged, their cattle driven off, and their wives and 
children, who lurked in the woods near by, were fired at. 

At length the Gorton men promised they would yield, and go to 
Massachusetts to be tried, if they could go as free men, and not as 
prisoners. This the soldiers promised, but as soon as they got in the 
house, the anns were taken from the Gorton men and they were marched 
off as captives. In Boston, they were received as if they were the most 
dangerous and dreadful men. 

The clerg\'men called the people together in the open streets to 
thank God for his goodness in giving them the victory, and Governor 
Winthrop went out and publicly blessed the soldiers. The trial lasted 
four days, and the elders declared that the oftense of these men was 
deserving of death, but the large body of the delegates would not 
permit this sentence. The. men were imprisoned. The winter they 



I06 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

spent in jail did not, however, keep their doctrines from spreading, and 
and at length Governor Winthrop thought it best to set them free. 
Within three days, however, they were told to depart ont of the town 
before noon. They had nothing to do once more but to take to the 
wilderness, where they lived among the Indians. In time they succeeded 
in getting from King Charles a document which let them pass safely 
through any town of New England, and which gave them an order for 
the grounds at Shewanet, from which they had been evicted by Arnold 
and his friends. Of course, they had much trouble in carrying this 
into effect. The Earl of Warwick was the president of the Board of 
Commissioners who had seen to the rights of the Gorton party, and in 
gratitude Shewanet was named Warwick. Warwick became a part of 
Providence plantation under a charter got by Roger Williams, in 1644. 
This charter Williams carried to Boston and made them recognize its 
power, but they treated him wnth no more friendliness there than they 
did before. He did not need to mind, however, when he was received 
at home with so much love. When the people heard that he was 
returning, the river was crowded with canoes, and the people gathered 
upon the banks to welcome him. This charter gave to the people of 
the Providence plantations full power and authority to govern and nile 
themselves, and all others who came within their boundaries. It was 
the first colonial charter of the sort that had ever been given. When 
the first general assembly met under it at Portsmouth, they declared 
that the form of government established in Providence plantations was 
democratic; that is to say, a government held by the free and voluntary' 
consent of all, or the greater part of the free inhabitants. It granted 
to even.- one absolute freedom of conscience. 

By this time political parties had begun to be felt in America. 
Men who had been Whigs and Tories in England, were Whigs and 
Tories here, and this declaration of democrac)- greatly offended the roy- 
alist party, who thought it an insult to the King. Some of these asked 
to be united to Massachusetts, but were refused unless they would allow 
that their land came within the Plymouth patent. This, of course, 
they would not do. It came about in time that a royal charter was 
obtained from Charles II, after he was restored to the throne, which 
united Rhode Island and the Providence plantations. The events which 
led to this are interesting, and form another chapter in that marvelous 
book of religious persecutions which go to make up so great a part in 
colonial history. 

The Reverend John Clark was one of the most popular citizens of 



THE PRIDE OF THE RIGHTEOUS. IO7 

Rhode Island, and the pastor of the Baptist Church at Newport. The 
Baptists were one of the exiled sects who had come within the protec- 
tion of Roger Williams' strong arm. Holmes and Crandall were also 
Baptist ministers, and these three went together to Lynn, in Massa- 
chusetts, to visit one of their faith who was old, sick and blind, and had 
desired to see them. While they were visiting this old man they held 
divine service in his house, and were arrested by constables for daring 
to preach the despised religion on Massachusetts territory. They were 
sent to the Boston jail until the court set, and, after ten days' confinement 
there, were found guilty of being Baptists. They were sentenced either 
to be whipped or pay a fine, and when the}- asked what they had been guilty 
of, Endicott replied that they denied infant baptism, and John Wilson, the 
pastor of the Boston Church, so lost his temper that he struck Holmes. 
Friends paid the fine of Clark and Crandall, but Holmes' conscience 
would not allow him to be released that he might escape a painful 
punishment, so he was led out of the prison into the presence of the 
people to be whipped. The coat which he had put on with much 
neatness, that he might look worthy of the Lord, was taken from him, 
and he was given thirty strokes with a three-corded whip. When the 
sheriff had finished, and even the hardest-hearted of the bystanders 
turned sick at the sight of his bleeding back, he turned smilingly to 
the magistrates bv, and said: "You have struck me as with roses." 

The political quarrels of the different towns of the Providence 
plantations had weakened their government, but the manner in which 
these Providence preachers had been treated determined them to see to 
their rights in the future, that they might be able to retaliate with 
proper force should Massachusetts interfere in this way again. Clark 
was sent to England to obtain the royal charter, which he did after 
working and waiting for several years. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
Biography— Spark's 'Gorton." 

Fiction — J. Banvard's "Priscilla." 

Hawthorne's "Scarlet Letter " 



CHAPTER XXII. 



the quakers — their persecution— george fox and his friends 
-mary fisher and ann austin — the 
-nQuaker children. 

HE Boston church seemed to feel for a while that 
it had done its duty, but after a time some 
strange people were found in their midst, who 
were called Quakers. Once more the church 
was up in arms. It wanted to know who the 
Quakers were. They found that they were the followers 
of George Fox, a man who mingled much poetic 
mysticism with the stern and self-denying religion. It is 
said that he had the power of perceiving evil thoughts 
in others, and could not pass by a wicked person 
without stopping to point out the path of refonn. His 
own life was beautifully pure and sanctified, and it was 
certain that he could read minds and influence people 
as it is given to only a few to do in this world. The 
doctrine of the Friends, as the followers of Fox were called, was to 
be at peace with all the world, to put aside vanities and show, to trust 
to the guidance of the inner spirit, and to put scholarship and holiness 
above gain in all cases. They used no titles, and would not pennit 
steeples on their churches, and dressed in plain garb of uniform color, 
in protest against all the gay ruffling and slashing which they saw in the 
streets of England, where Fox was born. Plainness of speech, as well 
as plainness of dress, was held to. Fox dressed in a suit of leather, but 
it may not have been so much to be different from other men as for the 
convenience of having one durable s^iit to wear upon his long journeys, 
and to keep out the damp and cold of the man\' dungeons in which he 
was placed. One of the things which most irritated the magistrates 
was the habit which the Quakers had of continually wearing their hats, 
believing that they should pay no more honor to one person than 




THROUGH PAIN TO PEACE. IO9 

another, and that it was a waste of time and sense to keep up so foolish 
a ceremony. The Friends insisted upon speaking in the churches, and 
interrupting the ministers when they overheard a remark to which they 
could not give their support. They believed that they had a call to 
bear their ' 'message' ' into the very strongholds of their adversaries, and 
sometimes launched speeches against them so fiercely that it is little 
wonder that the Puritan ministers were irritated, especially as the 
Quakers objected to their receiving any money for their services. The 
fight they made against "hireling religion" was very bitter. The 
personal life of the Quakers was thoroughly pure. Indeed, to such a 
high strain did their minds grow, that it is difficult for any one in this 
busy and more commonplace age, to appreciate the fervor and beauty 
of their visions, their sacrifices, and their prophesies. 

The Friends were first called Quakers by Justice Bennett, of Derby, 
in 1650, because the people trembled or quaked when they listened to 
the powerful words of Fox. Fox even had the courage when he was 
taken to London, in 1654, as a prisoner, and lodged in the old Mermaid 
Tavern, which Shakspeare and his friends made famous, to write to 
Cromwell, protesting against the drawing of the sword of war. The 
English had grown to fear the Quakers, even before they came to America. 

In July, 1656, the first Quakers came to Boston. These were Mary 
Fisher and Ann Austin, who were imprisoned upon their arrival and 
sent back to the Barbadoes, from whence they had come. Mary Fisher 
had traveled, not alone over Europe, but in parts of Asia, preaching 
the word, and in the autumn of 1653, three years before her imprison- 
ment at Boston, she had preached to the Cambridge students. Endicott 
was absent, when the ' 'Swallow' ' arrived, with Mary Fisher and Ann 
Austin on board, but the deputy governor had their baggage searched, and 
all of their books and tracts taken, and an order was issued, which was 
the first act of Massachusetts against the Quakers, in which the women 
were called preachers of corrupt, heretical, and blasphemous doctrines. 
While they were at Boston they were confined in the jail, with the 
windows boarded up. No one was allowed to speak to them, or render 
them any assistance. They were stripped, and examined for signs of 
witchcraft, but as they fortunately had no moles or freckles upon them, 
they were cleared of that charge. The people were even cautioned not 
to feed them, but Nicolas Upshall, an old gentleman of Boston, who 
held very grave ideas of justice, gave the jailor money to provide for 
them. He was arrested and thrown in jail, and upon release, was 
exiled. They would not receive him at Plymouth, and he went to live 



no THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

among the Indians, who had a friendly feeling for any who, like them- 
selves, had the Puritan religion so obnoxiously thrust at them. The 
Swallow was barely out of sight, when a vessel from London arrived 
with eight Friends on board. Their boxes and chests were immediately 
searched for "hellish pamphlets," and, after many questions, they were 
sent to jail. They were ordered to return on the vessel which brought 
them, and when the master refused to take them at his own expense, 
he was imprisoned until he yielded. The people became dissatisfied 
with measures which could not be sustained by the laws of the colony, 
and on October 14th a law was passed which made every ship-master 
bringing Quakers to New England subject to a payment of one hundred 
pounds, or imprisonment until the money was forthcoming. Any 
Quakers who arrived should be put in the house of correction, severely 
whipped, kept at constant labor, and forbidden to talk w4th any one. 
There were also fines for bringing or sending Quaker tracts to the 
colony. Vowx of the federate colonies adopted this, but Rhode Island 
refused, and very cleverly held that the Quakers would not care to come 
to Rhode Island if they were not persecuted for doing so. Not that the 
Quakers had any desire to become notorious, or wished a vain martyr- 
dom, but they naturally insisted upon trying to reform and soften the 
people who most reviled them. 

It is not necessary to repeat the particulars of each of their abuses 
of these gentle Friends. They were all much alike in cruelt)-, and it 
became common to whip them from town to town and to keep them for 
many days in jail without food, with not even a bunch of straw to lie 
upon. The instrument used for whipping them was a three-corded 
knout, with knots tied in it. But the more the people suflfered, the 
more converts they made. No one was allowed to entertain a Quaker 
without punishment, but for all of that, plenty of kind hearts were 
found who were willing to shelter them. Women were stripped naked 
and whipped, and one of them was whipped with a little babe only a 
few days old clinging to her breast. 

E\en the little children did not escape. Lawrence and Cassandra 
Southwick were banished from the colony under penalty of death, 
leaving behind them their poor little boy and girl in extreme poverty. 
They were fined for not attending regular worship, and having no 
money to pa}- the fine, were to be sold as slaves. It was hoped that 
they might bring ten pounds each, and so the treasury got the money 
which it ached for, but not a sea captain in the port of Boston would 
take them away, and the magistrates had no choice but to let them stay. 



THROUGH PAIN TO PEACE. Ill 

Another little child, Mary Wright, fourteen years of age, whose sister 
had been banished from Massachusetts, found her way from Long Island 
to Boston, that she might protest against the cruelty they were showing 
to these innocent people. Her words were so simple that even the 
hardened men about her were moved, and the secretary cried: "What! 
shall we be battled by such a one as this? Come, let us drink a dram." 

Sweet Mary Dyer, hearing of some friends in prison, visited them, 
and was arrested for it and put under the same roof She was banished, 
but returned to Boston to again visit the persecuted Friends, bringing 
with her linen to wrap the dead bodies of those who were to suffer. 
With her came a party of Friends, four of whom were women. They 
had guessed right; some were to suffer death, and Mary Dyer was one 
of them. The 27th of August she and two men were led to the Boston 
Common, with a great force of soldiers about them, and the drums 
beating. Mary Dyer walked as if to some great victor}', with a smile 
upon her face. The two men were hung, and just as they had tied 
Mar>' Dyer's clothes about her feet a cry came ringing across the 
Common announcing a reprieve, which her young son had got for her. 
She was banished, but in a few months returned again to Boston. It 
was required of her, she said, to take her message there. Her husband 
wrote a letter begging that she might be spared, but Endicott would 
show no mercy, and the tender appeal for Friend Dyer's "most dearly 
beloved wife" only irritated him, so on a certain sad day, with a strong 
body of soldiers about her, for fear of the people who were moved to 
much pity in her case, she was led to the Common and hung there, for 
others to take example by, so her judges said. 

The last man to be hung on Boston Common was William Leddra, 
who had dared to return after having been banished. He came into 
the court dragging a log behind him to which he was bound with chains, 
and answered all questions put to him with a fearlessness which all of 
his sect showed. But by this time the severity of the judges began to 
defeat itself. The people could not stand such cruelt}-, and they were 
frightened by the wild prophecies of Wenlock Christison. He was 
whipped through Boston, Roxbury and Dedham, and cast into the 
wilderness, but his prophecies remained behind him to frighten and 
subdue the people, for oddly enough many of them came true. 

At length the King of England put a stop to the cruelty with which 
the Quakers were being treated, and the order was placed in the hands 
of Samuel Shattock, a Quaker, who had been banished from Boston 
under penalty of death. When Shattock walked before Endicott, with 



112 



THE STORY OK AMERICA. 



his hat upon his head, he was met with the usual brutal questions, but 
when he showed his order. Governor Endicott, overcome with mortifica- 
tion, yet not forgetting his courtes}- to an embassy from his sovereign, 
replaced the hat which he had snatched from Shattock's head and 
removed his own. The King ordered that all prisoners' should be sent 
to England. This, it goes without saying, Endicott and his friends 
would not dare pennit. They settled the question by dismissing the 
prisoners. However, the cruelties against the Quakers were revived 
later, and men and women were frequent!)- tied to the end of a cart and 
whipped from town to town. 

The last time a Quaker was imprisoned was at the time of Endicott' s 
burial. An old woman, sixty-five }ears of age, made some remarks, 
true but not savory, about the dead magistrate. These persecutions 
lasted ten years in all, until again tlie King interfered, sending to ]\Iassa- 
chusetts and Connecticut orders that all persons of civil lives would 
fully enjoy the liberty of their conscience. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Mather's "Magnalia.'' 
Poetry — Wliittier's "Cassandra Southwick." 
Longfellow's 'John F^ndicott." 




CHARLES I, OF KNULANli 



,. llK' painting by Antun van Dyck.) 




OLIVKK CROMWELL. 
Cut ou wood, in imitation of the mezzotint of I. Faber, 1740. Painting by P. Lely, 1653. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



GOVERNOR BERKELEY AND HIS REIGN — MORE TROUBLE WITH THE 
INDIANS — THE PURITANS AGAIN VICTORIOUS — THE 
RETURN OF THE STUARTS 
^ -^' ■^ -TO POWER. 





f4 

JFTER King' Charles I had been beheaded, and' 
Cromwell, the great dictator, ruled, many of those 
who had stood by the King, and were now in dis- 
favor and poverty, hastened to the Virginian 
colony. This was the only one of all the colonies 
which had steadfastly believed in the cause of the 
King. So the disappointed royalists of England 
were glad to come by hundreds to the only spot in the 
New World in which all that they loved was respected. 
— where they could have the church service which 
they wished, and where no one reviled the dead King. 
They brought with them their old ways. Used to the- 
life of court and camp, they lived carelessly, spending 
their money without thought of its value, and caring 
little for the rights of those poorer or less powerful than themselves. 
They were a merry and elegant set, and even when their clothes were 
worn to rags, they were still wonderfully polite and lordly in their 
manners. 

One of the pleasantest chronicles of colonial life has been left by one 
of the men who came over in the way described. This was Colonel 
Norwood, a young man of much bravery and originality, who was 
wrecked with his company on an island near Virginia. They starved 
there for ten days, and were taken to the mainland by a party of Indians 
who chanced to pass. Among the Indians they were treated with much 
kindness, and finally were guided from plantation to plantation through 
the hospitable Virginian colony until they reached the settlement. In 
these careless and genial old days, hospitality was not alone a matter of 



114 '^HE STORY OF AMERICA. 

impulse. There was a law ordering that an\- stranger coming to the 
house should be cared for as a guest, unless an agreement in writing 
was made with him before he entered. It can easily be imagined that 
not one person in a thousand would do such a thing, especially in an 
age where inhospitality was considered the worst of crimes. 

After Governor Harvey had been sent back b}' the King to govern 
Virginia, the troubles between Maryland and Virginia continued to 
grow worse. In course of time he was succeeded by Sir Francis Wyat, 
and he, in time, by Sir William Berkeley, the best known of the James- 
town governors. He came to Jamestown early in 1642, amid the 
enthusiasm of the people. Nothing was so dear to him as his King, 
and he followed the royal commands in everything. Under his rule 
the colony prospered. But the colony took some very ill-advised 
measures, and in 1643 enacted laws which broke up the Puritan 
churches. When, a little later, there was a sudden rising among the 
Indians, and a great number of Virginian planters were killed, the 
Puritans saw in it a meting out of God's justice to their persecutors. 
The Indians were treated as enemies, and it was declared that there 
should be no peace between them and the whites, and that a savage 
might be shot whenever he was seen. The Indians planned a cunning 
revenge, and killed from three hundred to five hundred of the English 
in return for this cruel law. But for some reason which has never been 
explained, they drew off and retreated to the woods, instead of con- 
tinuing their slaughter, as they might easily have done. This was 
twenty-two years after the Virginian massacre, which had so nearly 
extinguished the colony. But now the province was of more than 
thirty years' standing, with good rulers and well-organized means of 
defence. All the forces of the colony were turned upon the Indians, 
and they were driven from one point to another, many of them taken 
prisoners, and, finally, the great chief who ruled over all of those lands 
where Powhatan had once been King, was taken and brought to 
Jamestown. This chief's name was Opechancanough. He was nearly 
one hundred years old, and so crippled with paralysis that he could not 
even open his eyes to look at his victors, who crowded about him as he 
lay dying in prison. It had been the intention to take him to England 
to show the people there a man who had kept the colony in a state of 
terror for years, but he was cruelly shot by one of his guards, and so had 
the good fortune to die in his own country' which he had loved deeply 
and fought for with extraordinary fierceness. 

During all the time of the great Revolution in England, the Virginian 



THE ROYALIST COLONY OF VIRGINIA. II5 

colony was in a state of unusual prosperity. Tobacco was the chief 
export, and even in the midst of the war, men would not stop using 
tobacco; therefore, their income did not decrease. In England, there 
was no time to attend to colonial affairs, and Virginia grew stronger 
under home rule. There was plenty of skilled labor among the fifteen 
thousand Englishmen who made up the colony, and smelting works, 
hemp and flax culture, vine-raising, indigo-making, and the manufacture 
of bricks succeeded well. The plantations grew, and in the midst of 
them were built those hospitable, porch-surrounded mansions which we 
still associate with the colonial period. More than thirty vessels 
brought out English goods every year, and took back cargoes of native 
productions. 

Virginia had had the courage to openly denounce the execution of 
King Charles I, and had made a law calling it treason for any one to 
speak against him, so in 1650 the Parliament in England said that there 
should be no more trade with these uncompliant colonies, and sent over 
commissioners to force allegiance to Cromwell. With these commis- 
sioners came a regiment of soldiers and one hundred and fifty prisoners 
of war, who were to be sold as servants in Virginia. They demanded 
the surrender of Jamestown, and it was found necessary to yield. The 
Puritans were more than a religious party at this time. They were a 
political party as well, both in England and America, and Cromwell's 
men who came to demand the surrender of the Virginian colonies 
represented the Puritans. The terms of the surrender were not unkind, 
and even gave consent that the common prayer book should be used for 
the next year. Consideration was shown Governor Berkeley and his 
officers, and they were given liberty to sell their estates, if they wished 
to leave the colony. A government was established, with William 
Clayborne and Richard Bennett at its head. Tliey were men highly 
esteemed and very generous in their government. Clayborne, although 
he had had such quarrelsome experiences with Maryland, was a very 
sensible and clever gentleman, from one of the best families of England, 
and was one of the strongest upholders of the Protestant faith. Though 
he did not forget his old troubles with Maryland, and the serious 
grievance he had against Lord Baltimore, he was, nevertheles's, con- 
siderate at first in his government of Maryland, now that it was partly 
in his power. 

Governor Stone, now at the head of the Maryland colony, was the 
second Governor since Leonard Calvert. The few months that followed 
the triumph of Cromwell were ver)- bewildering to Governor Stone. 



Il6 TH?: STORY OF AMERICA. 

Now he would have a message from the Long Parliament, saying that 
he must proclaim to his subjects the supremacy of the Dictator and give 
an oath of fidelity, and again would receive indignant letters from Lord 
Baltimore, saying that he owed allegiance to him. Several times he 
issued diflferent manifestoes, until finally Bennett and Claybome them- 
selves made a proclamation saying that Maryland belonged to the 
Protector, and removing the Catholic officers, they appointed a Board of 
Puritan Commissioners. 

So at length the Puritans, who had been so much abused, began to 
be the stronger party in both countries. They were men of determined 
characters, who believed that God led them in ever>'thing. Lord 
Baltimore protested against the easy way in which Stone had yielded 
to the Puritan will, and under his influence Stone gathered his forces 
and seized the State archives and all the arms and ammunition he could 
find. Then he took his force of two hundred men and embarked on 
twelve boats, which went up Chesapeake Bay to Severn, opposite Kent 
Island, where the Puritans were settled. Stone intended to enforce 
their submission. In the Severn was a large ship, the Golden Lw?i^ 
which sent out shots among the advancing fleet as they came into the 
harbor, and Stone hurried his vessels farther up the creek and took his 
men on shore, with a good deal of noise and bluster. But while they 
were gone, the Puritans took possession of all their vessels, sending a 
detachment by land to force the Catholics up the peninsula. While 
they were retreating, they suddenly met one hundred and twenty men 
who had come out from Providence to meet them. With enemies on 
both sides it was necessary to fight, so crying, "Hey for St. Marys," 
they rushed at the enemy. But the Puritans cried, "In the name of 
God, fall on; God is our strength," and elated with that stern frenzy 
which carried them through such awful trials, they killed and wounded 
fifty of the Catholics and took all but four or five prisoners. Only four of 
the Puritans died in consequence of the engagement. F'our of the 
leaders were killed, and Governor Stone was sentenced to death, but 
some of the Puritans begged for his life and he was spared. 

And now a letter came from the Protector, forbidding the Virginians 
to have anything to do with the affairs of Maryland until the bound- 
aries could be settled. Lord Baltimore was permitted to send out a 
deputy governor to keep his colony quiet, but it was two years before 
matters were settled, and the liberal laws of Maryland ratified by the 
English government. For several years all went well in Virginia. 
Bennett resigned his office in favor of Edward Diggs, who was followed, 



THE ROYALIST COLONY OF VIRGINIA. II 7 

in turn, by Governor Mathews, There were still two distinct political 
parties in yirginia, but their interests were too closely allied for them 
to keep quarreling with each other, and in these peaceful years many 
laws were passed which were of great value to the colonists. 

After Cromwell died, the Puritans began to lose strength in Virginia, 
aud when King Charles II was put on the throne of his father in 
England, the old ro}'alist party of Virginia once more became the ruling 
power, and Sir William Berkeley was elected Governor. He sent a 
glad letter to the King telling how happy he was to serve the royal 
family again, and a day was set apart to the memory of King Charles 
I, to be kept alive by yearly feast on the 13th of January. Berkeley 
did not put the distinguished Puritans out of office, but let them 
continue under him. The House of Representatives was not to 
meet unless there was positive need for it, so it chanced that for 
fifteen years there was no popular election. Tobacco currency was the 
money used in paying the State officers, and the salary of the Governor 
was equal to the whole annual expenditure of the colony of Connecticut. 

The slavery of negroes was steadily increasing, and a law was made 
condemning all children of mixed blood to serve as slaves for life. 
There were a great many white slaves, also, brought from the jails and 
slums of England, and these were much lower than the blacks, for they 
were vicious, while the negroes were only ignorant. The Church of 
England once more became the established church of the colony, but 
the Puritans were not persecuted, although they were held in check 
and not allowed to preach, even in private. In 1662 a fine was imposed 
upon all persons who would not subscribe to the orthodox religion. The 
Quakers here, as elsewhere, were held in disfavor, and many of them 
were driven into North Carolina. Penalties were still imposed for the 
purpose of making the colonists raise more corn and less tobacco, for 
the supply of tobacco was greater than the demand for it. 

The English made an effort to confine all the foreign trade to them- 
selves, but this they found it very difficult to do. In 1663 a plot was 
discovered to overthrow the government. This may have been the 
outcome of the discontent which the people felt at having these trade 
laws enforced. The plot was discovered and four of the ring-leaders 
hung. After this a day was set for thanksgiving for the defeat of the 
conspiracy, on the 13th of September. 

FOR FCRTHER READING: 
Fiction— W. A. Carruthers' "The Cavaliers of Virginia." 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



"fs^, fnr p. ®arp! 



tt 



THE COLONY OF VIRGINIA — THE INDIANS — THE UPRISING OF BACON AND 

HIS FRIENDS — RESTRICTION OF THE GOVERNOR'S RIGHTS — 

BACON USURPS THE GOVERNMENT — RETURN OF 

BERKELEY — DESERTION OF JAMESTOWN — 

Ox DEATH OF BACON — BREAKING UP 

OF BACON'S PARTY. 



JRGINIA was founded upon a wrong basis. In 
1670 there were forty thousand people under the 
Virginian government. The militia of the province 
nmstered eight thousand men. Of these forty 
thousand, two thousand were negro slaves and six 
thousand were white servants bound for a term of 
years. Many of these were soldiers who had risked 
their lives for liberty in England, and failing, had been 
brought as prisoners of war to the colonies. Ever}' year 
fifteen hundred white servants were brought over, and 
the reason that the colony was not much greater was 
that four-fifths of them, when put upon the new planta- 
tions, died. They had but little clothing and but poor 
shelter, for money was not plenty. In England, the 
price of tobacco had been reduced, and the price of goods which the 
tobacco was sent in exchange for had been raised to extravagant prices. 
The Virginia planter, therefore, got but little, and as they all took it 
upon themselves to maintain large mansions and generously entertain 
great numbers of guests, they economized at the expense of their slaves. 
The colony was not a religious one at any time, and though Mary- 
land and Virginia did quarrel upon religious grounds, this was but a cover 
for politics. It is true that there were forty-eight parishes in the colony, 
but most of these were illy provided with ministers. Nearly all of 
them were sixty or seventy miles in extent, and could not have 




"hey, for ST. mary's!" 119 

been well attended to even by the most zealous ministers, which 
the Virginian clergymen were not. They liked the free living of the 
colony as well as did their flocks, and were not held in much awe. 
There were no free schools in the colon}-, nor was there any printing, 
for which Governor Berkeley was sincerely thankful. The taxes grew 
worse from year to year, and the officers of the government more purse- 
proud and arrogant. The people had no voice in the government at all. 
Finally, in 1673, the whole colony was given as a present by the King 
to two of his favorites, Lord Culpepper and the Earl of Arlington. 
This meant more taxes, and the people became thoroughly discon- 
tented. The Indians, also, were a great source of annoyance and 
anxiety to them, and the colonists wished to organize an armed force 
for protection, but Governor Berkeley was afraid of injuring the Indian 
trade, from which he drew a large revenue, and would not permit the 
people to organize for defense. But when a quiet farmer was found 
murdered at his own door, the colonists determined to take revenge, 
regardless of what the government might say. Two forces, one under 
Captain Brent and the other under Colonel Mason, started out. They 
invaded two wigwams, killing at least twenty-four Indians. This was 
the signal for a general Indian war. Four great Indian tribes united to 
take revenge — the Susquehannocks, Doegs, Senecas and Piscataways. 
Both in ?*Iaryland and Virginia the planters were badly alarmed, and 
they united in an expedition, sending out one thousand men, with 
Colonel John Washington and Major Thomas Truman, of Maryland. 
They surrounded the fort where the Susquehannocks had taken refuge, 
and were cruel enough to kill five of the chiefs who came out to peace- 
fully parley with them. Such a dishonorable act, opposed as it was to- 
all rules of warfare, brought a severe reproof from the Governor and 
Council. But the Indians entered upon a systematic revenge. Before 
spring came, sixt}' of the colonists had been killed upon their farms, 
and the Indians were forever lurking in the shadow of the bushes, and 
under the river banks. No one felt safe. The people crowded together 
in the strongest houses, and at night barricaded their windows, and 
slept with their arms beside them. 

The colonists begged the Governor to give them some protection^ 
but that rich old gentleman, rapidly making money for himself, 
and contented with his own fine living, paid no attention to their 
appeals. The young men, especially, became indignant at his selfish- 
ness and carelessness, and made up their minds that if he did not come 
to their aid, they would give open war on their own account. Among 



I20 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

the young men was Nathaniel Bacon, who lived upon an estate called 
"Curies," not far from Richmond, where Bacon Quarter Branch still 
stands. He had a plantation, and it chanced that his overseer upon 
this place was one of the unfortunates on whom the Indians chose to 
take their revenge. Bacon was mucli attached to his overseer and he 
swore that these outrages must be stopped. Though he was not 
yet thirty, he was such a daring and independent young man that all of 
his neighbors looked to him as their leader, and when he had sent again 
to the Governor, asking him for a commission against the Indians, and 
been met with silence, he detennined to march out against the savages, 
regardless of consequences. A large force of men gathered about him; 
but even after that. Bacon sent once more to the Governor asking for a 
commission. As it did not come, they started on their march. They had 
gone but a little way when the}' were overtaken by a messenger from 
the Governor calling them all rebels, and forbidding them to proceed in 
any warlike action. The question was, then, whether any of them 
dare disobey the government of the colony. Fifty-seven of them had 
the couraere, and went on with Bacon into the forest, but some of them 
feared that their property would be confiscated, and deserted him. In 
a short time they had annihilated the tribe of ihe Susquehannocks and 
returned to their farms. 

The Governor had sent a troop of horses after the ' 'rebels, " as he 
called them, and while the capital was thu^- deserted a revolt broke out 
among the planters at the south of Jamestown, so that when the 
Governor returned he found everything in such a turbulent condition 
that he had to yield to some of the demands of the citizens. They 
asked that they might no longer be taxed for the several useless forts 
which their hard-earned money had to support, and also that the 
assembly, which had not been changed for fifteen years, might be 
dissolved, and the people allowed to elect their officers. It showed how 
well the people thought of Bacon that he was one of the new members 
elected. Bacon, confident and proud, came promptly to Jamestown, 
notwithstanding the fact that the title of "rebel" still hung over him. 
Governor Berkeley met him in great state. "Mr. Bacon," said he, 
"have you forgotten how to be a gentleman?" "No, may it please 
your honor," the young man replied. "Then I will take your parole, " 
said the Governor. Later, in the presence of all the assembly. Bacon 
delivered a written apology to the Governor for his independent and 
headstrons: actions. The Governor seemed to be really attached to 
him — and indeed few could help admiring his courage and brilliancy. But 



"hey, for ST. MARY'S !" 121 

Bacon did not trust the Governor, and thought he was trying to deceive 
him, and he ran away from Jamestown to rejoin his neighbors. Some 
people say that he was afraid he would be arrested again, and 
that he had to flee for his life. Perhaps he did think so, but it is 
hardly possible that the stern old Governor would have dared to treat a 
young man of high family so, although he was careless enough of the 
lives of the poor. In a few days, Bacon came marching back to James- 
town, with an army of five hundred men. The Governor tried to 
gather the militia about him, but their sympathies were with Bacon, 
and in a short time the insurgents were in the capital, camped 
upon the green near the State House, and holding all the streets. The 
assembly was called together, and Bacon stood by the corner of the 
State House, guarded by a double file of soldiers. 

Berkeley came out on the steps, while the assembly hung out of the 
windows and cried to Bacon to shoot him, but the young rebel swore 
that he would not hurt a hair of his head nor any other man's, but that 
he wanted a commission to save the lives of his neighbors from the 
Indians, and reminded the Governor that he had often promised to give it 
to him and had broken his word. When the Governor turned and walked 
away, followed by the council, and Bacon saw that no attention was 
to be paid to his command, he grew furious, and swearing that he would 
kill Governor, council and assembly, and himself last, told his men to 
point their fusils at the windows. All the people shouted for the 
commission, and finally a handkerchief was waived from the window in 
sign of peace. The soldiers were sent away, and Bacon went alone to 
the assembly room, giving them some of his hot eloquence. But every- 
one was afraid to act, and the Governor would do nothing. By morning 
the Governor changed his mind. He probably saw that there was 
nothing to do but to yield. Bacon got his commission, and immediately 
began organizing one thousand men to start a campaign against the 
Indians. 

After the Governor had yielded one point, he was forced by the people 
to yield many. The Governor's fees were restricted, and he was no 
longer allowed to have a monopoly of the foreign trade. Taxes were 
regulated upon a certain system; so hot and furious did the members of 
the assembly grow in talking over these matters that many feuds were 
started in Virginia families, which continued over one hundred years. 
As soon as Bacon's back was turned, the Governor once more declared 
him to be a rebel, but when he ventured to say this before tweh'e 
hundred men whom he had collected about him for the purpose of 



122 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

forming a militia, they turned their backs upon him and deserted, and 
let the fields ring with their cries of "Bacon!" "Bacon!" As soon 
as Bacon learned that he was once more proclaimed an outlaw, he 
promptly marched to meet the Governor, who fled hurriedh- across the 
Chesapeake, leaving the province of Virginia to the will of his vigorous 
young opponent. Practically, Bacon was now Governor, and he began 
reorganizing immediately, calling a convention for the purpose of 
revising the laws. The matter was a very grave one, and the men who 
stood about Bacon knew that at any time the}- might be defeated and 
suflfer the penalties of rebellion. The national revolution itself did not 
call for sterner constancy. 

One of the best inspirations of these men was a lady, Mrs. 
Drummond the wife of one of Bacon's closest councilors. Her advice 
was followed in many matters, for she was a woman of great spirit and 
eloquence, and seemed to influence all who came near her. 

But Berkeley was not without friends, and succeeded, through the 
treachery of some of Bacon's men, in getting possession of an armed 
fleet. As soon as the royalists through the country saw that there was 
a show of success for the Governor's arms, they came flocking to him, 
and in a short time he was in possession of a ver\' large force. He took 
Jamestown on September 17th, and at once re-established the old fonn 
of government and reinstated his friends in their places. Bacon had 
dealt some terrible blows to the Indians, and thinking that there was 
no need of keeping his men from their plantations, had allowed his army 
to dissolve. He called them together again and hurried across the 
country to the capital. Throwing up some rude breastworks on a hill, 
he awaited the attack of the Governor. It is said that he captured 
certain Virginian ladies from Jamestown, and taking them to his camp, 
sent word that he would hold them as hostages, and that they were to 
be placed before his men, in case the people of the town should make a 
sally upon them. If this was the case, it was no wonder that the men 
of Jamestown could not make a respectable defence. The gentle- 
women, be it said, were safely returned in course of time. Berkeley 
and his friends fled from Jamestown, getting upon their boats in the 
night and taking away their household goods, and everything, either of 
private or state nature, belonging to them. When Bacon entered the 
town in the morning, he found a deserted city, in which there was not 
even victuals for his men. He determined that the wasteful and 
arrogant cavaliers should never return, and ordered his anny to set fire 
to the cit}'. Ever)' house in Jamestown was burned to the ground. 



"hey, for ST. Mary's!" 123 

Thus perished the oldest English settlement in America. Bacon 
settled at Gloucester Point, and from there continued his raids upon the 
Indians, but in the midst of his victories he sickened and died. To this 
day the people of Virginia have not ceased to quarrel about the character 
of Bacon. A man so brilliant and determined could not but have warm 
friends and warmer foes. His party did not live long after his death. 
As soon as Berkeley heard what had happened, he sent out a force which 
captured several of the leading rebels. A proclamation of peace was 
made from which Bacon's friends were excepted. At length their 
stronghold at West Point was lost. Drummond, Bacon's dear friend, 
was taken. The old cavalier Governor met him with much ceremony, 
and said, with a show of courtliness, "Mr. Drummond, you are more 
than welcome. I am more glad to see you than any other man in 
Virginia. Mr. Drummond, you shall be hanged within half an hour." 
Worse, his accomplished wife and her five little children were driven 
out from the town into the forest. Many of the rebels were killed, and 
the bones of Bacon were ever>^where looked for, that they might be hung 
in chains upon the gibbet, but to this day the place of his burial has 
never been discovered. 

Affairs became so serious after a time, what with imprisonment, 
banishment, confiscation of property and many sorts of tortuous punish- 
ments, that the King sent some trusted men from England to inquire 
into the state of affairs. Berkeley was taken to England, where he died 
without having had a chance to defend his conduct to the King whose 
approval he had always been so anxious for. It is said that he died of 
a broken heart, because the King disapproved of his conduct, and called 
him an old fool. Bacon had shown the people how strong they were, 
and planted in the colony a stern determination to preserve legislative 
rights. When the time of the national revolution came, Virginia was 
one of the strongest pillars of the new edifice. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
Fiction— Carruther's "The Cavalier of Virginia." 

Carruther's "The Knights of the Horseshoe." 



CHAPTER XXV. 



^ar| far !|iins0lf. 



THE CAROLINAS — THE PROPRIETORS AND THEIR "GRAND MODEL" — 
THE ALBEMARLE SETTLEMENT — REMOVAL OF CHARLES- 
TON THE SPANISH BUCCANEERS SETH 

SOTHELL — QUAKER RULE. 




T is odd tliat the beautiful stretch of coast lyings 
between Florida and V' irginia should so long have 
escaped permanent settlement. Possibly there 
were many unknown settlements of a quiet nature 
upon it, and that many a coaster had landed upon 
its fruitful shores and strayed among its silken 
grasses. It is known that one Quaker, by the name of 
George Durant, who was fond of solitiide, built a cabin 
on the Chowan river, and paddled his canoe about 
between the banks of moss-hung trees. A company of 
New England men had also purchased land at the mouth 
of Cape Fear river, but for some mysterious reason left 
the settlement and their herds of cattle behind them, 
returning to New England with a ver}' bad report of the 
spot they had visited. But it is quite possible that they were too indo- 
lent to undergo the hardships of new colonization, or that their treat- 
ment of the Indians obliged them to leave. They left a paper hidden 
in a post, warning eveiyone who landed there against the country. 
This paper was found by a company of men from Barbadoes, but they 
were not dissuaded from settling there, the country "lying commo- 
diously by the river's side" being more eloquent than the written words 
of the men from New England. These settled about twenty or thirty 
miles up Cape Fear river. 

A very short time after this, settlement under a king's charter was 
made in this country. The King gave to certain gentlemen all the ter- 
ritor}', which included the present States of North and South Carolina 



EACH FOR HIMSELF. 1 25 

and Georgia, with the usual indefinite western boundary. The pro- 
prietors to whom the King gave this present were nine noble lords, one 
of them being Clarendon, Lord Chancellor of England, another being 
Duke of Albemarle, who was the leader in the restoration of the King 
to the throne. Besides these were Lord Berkeley and the Earl of 
Shaftesbury. These men laid great plans for their colony. It was to 
be the model settlement of the world. The constitution was prepared 
by John Locke, the great philosopher and statesman. So carefully pre- 
pared was this fundamental constitution that the colonies had already 
been established three years before they were finished. It is really worth 
while to quote from this "Grand Model." Eight proprietors were to 
be constituted lords, the eldest to be Palatine of the province, and 
upon his death the eldest of the survivors to succeed him. Seven other 
ofiices, of admiral, chamberlain, chancellor, constable, chief justice, 
high steward and treasurer, were to be divided among the others — the 
eldest always to have choice of a vacant place. All the rights of 
property were hereditary in the male line; in lack of direct male heirs, 
male descendants through the female line succeeded, and after them, 
heirs general. There were orders of hereditary nobility called land- 
graves and cassiques. The domains of the proprietors were called 
seigniories. Every seigniory, barony and colony contained twelve 
thousand acres; each county four hundred and eighty thousand acres, 
of which three-fifths were to be owned by the people and two-fifths by 
the hereditary nobility. There was an absolute prohibition against the 
entrance of any common people into the titled class, and the highest 
dignity to which a common man might attain was to become lord of the 
manor, which manor must consist of not less than three thousand 
or more than twelve thousand acres. There was another small honor 
to be gained under the jurisdiction of the lords of the seigniory. The 
men who attained to this dignity were called Leetmen. There were 
eight supreme courts and ver}' elaborate laws for a parliament. The 
ver}^ amusements of the children were arranged, as well as the fashions 
of the women's gowns. All entertainments and decorations, marriages, 
burials, and every other circumstance and happening of home-life, was 
arranged for as accurately as if men were dices upon a chess-board. 

In the three years that Locke spent preparing this remarkable and 
elaborate system of government, two colonies had become very well 
established in Carolina, as the proprietors called their new possession. 
On May 29, 1664, Sir John Yeamans brought over the first expedition. 
The province of which Yeamans was appointed Governor extended 



126 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

from Cape Fear to the St. Johns, in Florida. Sir William Berkeley, of 
Virginia, was asked by the proprietors to establish a government on the 
Chowan. At the head of this he placed William Drummond, the man 
who afterwards was Bacon's faithful friend in the Virginian revolution. 
This settlement was called Albemarle, and here, while this wonderful 
piece of law-making for their benefit was going on over in England, 
the busy people of the settlement had made practical and simple laws 
quite sufficient for their needs. 

The fact that they could never be more than leetmen or lords of 
manors, was not troubling them at all. They were building houses and 
canoes, clearing land and planting fields, quite unconscious of the fact 
that a great, imaginary population of landgraves and cassiques was going 
to watch over them. The New England people began to come down and 
settle along the coast, and a company of Bermuda people had taken up 
lands b)- the Pasquotank river. 

Inducements were offered by the settlement at Albemarle to 
English maidens and widows, promising them honest and stalwart hus- 
bands if they were only civil and under fifty years of age. The colony 
had also the appearance of offering a refuge to runaway debtors, for it 
had a law which permitted no debt contracted outside of Albemarle to 
be sued for within five years. As a consequence, the reckless spend- 
thrifts of London found this a very convenient place of abode. Marriage 
was a ci\-il contract, probably because there were so few ministers in 
the colony. There was no wish to discourage colonial lovers by making 
their wedding difficult. As for the great fundamental constitution, no 
one paid any attention to it, and though some men rejoiced in the title 
of landgraves and cassiques, their inferiors gave them little added 
respect on this account, and the "Great Model" was finally rejected by 
the assembly of South Carolina in 1698. 

In July, 1669, Captain William Sayle was sent over with the first 
expedition which the proprietors had directly made. Sayle was com- 
missioned Governor of that part of Carolina lying south and west 
of Cape Carteret, or Cape Romain, as it is now called. Sayle and 
Joseph West reached Port Royal in January of 1670, and finally chose 
a place for settlement on Ashley river. This they named Charleston, 
which still bears the name that they then gave it. This colony did not 
succeed very well, for the proprietors kept a heavy drain upon their 
treasury. Most of the hard labor was done by negro slaves. There 
were too few industrious and worthy men in the country, and far 
too many of the dissipated and vicious class of English criminals. Sir 



EACH FOR HIMSELF. 1 27 

John Yeaman's management had been extendea over these people with 
whom he was unpopular, and when he retired he had a large fortune, 
wrenched from the people and the Indians. Joseph West was appointed 
Governor in his place. West was immensely popular, and afifairs, under 
his administration, began to improve immediately. 

Meanwhile, the people of Albemarle had begun to express open 
discontent, and sent an address to the proprietors asking for a Governor 
who could understand their necessities. Many plans were tried, and a 
great deal of money spent on these people, who seemed unreasonably 
hard to manage. Governor after Governor was tried, but none proved 
efficient, and at length Seth Sothell arrived, in 1683, to take his position 
as Governor, to which he had been appointed some time before, but 
having been stolen by the Turks on his way over, had been held in 
captivity for some time. While Albemarle was passing through all 
this trouble in Northern Carolina, Charleston, under the management 
of Joseph West, was continuing in prosperity. It is true that there 
were feuds between the Puritans of New England, who had come 
down, and the royalists whom the proprietors in Old England had sent 
out. The Huguenots of France also came here, and a large company 
of French artisans and farmers, who understood silk manufacture, vine 
growing, etc. 

As for the people on the Ashley river, they saw that they had made 
a mistake in settling so far up the stream, and in 1680 the old town 
was abandoned and the foundation of a new Charleston laid upon the 
present site of the city of that name. As they had time to lay this 
with care, they saw to it that the streets were large and capacious, and 
that good spots were reserv^ed for the building of churches and a town 
house, and artillery grounds for the exercise of their militia, and 
wharfs for the convenience of their trade and shipping. The people 
came to this colony in great numbers, from England, Ireland and the 
West Indies. It goes without saying that the manners of this mixed 
company were rather loose, though for this very reason less likely to have 
severe church and political differences. West was a man of determina- 
tion, and saw to it that his militia was kept well armed and the colony 
well protected from the Indians. But out of their greed for money 
grew a most dishonorable method of conflict, which placed a price upon 
the head of every Indian captive, who was then sold to slave traders. 
When this was brought to the notice of the proprietors, however, they 
put an immediate stop to this barbarous practice. The old Spanish 
buccaneers found Charleston a most convenient retreat, and so careless 



128 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

were they with their money, and such good drinkers and stor>'-tellers, 
that the citizens encouraged their coming, and when one of the 
Governors imprisoned some of them, the people protested so that he 
was obliged to release them. 

One act of cruelty on their part, however, brought about the enmit)- 
of the Carolinians. A company of Scotch Presbyterians had come, 
under the leadership of Lord Cardross, and made a settlement at Port 
Royal, in 1684. Three Spanish galleys appeared suddenly before this 
little colony in 1686, and destroyed the place. They landed again south 
of Charleston, at Be^^r's Bluff, and sacked the settlement and took 
Governor IMorton's brother prisoner. They intended to keep these 
depredations up along the coast, in retaliation for the wrecking and 
despoiling of some of their galleys by the colonists, but they were met 
by a terrible hurricane, and the galley on which Morton was held was 
run ashore, so that she could not be got off. The Spaniards set fire to 
the galley where Mr. Morton la}' in chains, and he was burned to death. 
England would not permit the colonists to move against the Spaniards 
at St. Augustine, however, fearing that it might involve the two great 
home nations in war. 

Seth Sothell, who has been mentioned as the Governor appointed in 
1683, proved to be a treacherous and selfish man, and used the govern- 
orship of North Carolina for his own gain. When he heard that there 
was dissatisfaction in South Carolina, he called his followers together 
and seized the government of the other colony. Having ever}'thing 
under his control, he began to pile up a great fortune by a system of 
oppression and taxation. The proprietors were in despair, but finally 
appointed one Governor for all the province, north and south, who was 
to have his residence at Charleston. Philip Ludwell was this general 
Governor. He was sent over from England, and having no experience 
in colonial affairs, soon showed that he was not strong enough to 
manage the discontented settlers. Thomas Smith, one of the Caro- 
linian planters, was put in his place. He was a quiet, discreet and 
judicious man, who, without governing brilliantly or decisively, brought 
many benefits to the colony during the two years that he ruled. It was 
during his administration that rice was first planted in this country. 
The rice grew wonderfully in the marshes along the rivers, of a superior 
quality to that of the cast. It was but a short time before it became 
one of Carolina's most valuable products. Thomas Smith found the 
complexities of government too much for him, and wrote to the 
proprietors asking them to scud over one of themselves to govern. 



EACH FOR HIMSELF. 1 29 

They did so, choosing John Archdale, a Quaker, who had bought out the 
interest of one of the older proprietors. With his hat upon his head, 
dressed in his quaint Quaker garment, this moderate and deliberate man 
stood before the assembly of the Carolinas, and told them gravely and 
firmly how he meant to manage them. He kept his word, with the 
quiet faithfulness of his sect. He inquired patiently into every com- 
plaint which reached his ears, selected a council from among his citizens, 
and, in spite of the fact that he was a Quaker, and opposed to war, 
trained the militia better than it had ever been trained before, looking 
to every detail of military matters himself. There were already many 
other Quakers at Albemarle, and these increased in numbers, and 
became, it goes without saying, his warm supporters. All of the colo- 
nists recognized his judicious rule, and after having got the colony into 
a wholesome state, appointed a successor, Joseph Blake, and returned 
to England. Joseph Blake ruled for four years over a colony now well 
established and well ordered. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Ramsay's ".South Carolina." 

Williamson's "North Carolina." 
Fiction— Skitt, 'Fisher's River 

Simms' "Cassique of Kiawah." 



CHAPTER XXVI, 



lan's ^nl^umanil^ Id ®Hn. 



ATTACK OF INDIANS ON NEW NJETHERLAND — DESTRLXTIOX OF 

PAVONIA — PERSECUTION OF LUTHERANS AND QUAKERS AT 

NEW AMSTERDAM — SLAVERY AMONG THE DUTCH — 

ENGLISH ENCROACHMENTS — SURRENDER 



OF NEW NETHERLAND — SETTLE- 




MENT OF NEW JERSEY. 



:HILE Peter Stiiyvesant was absent conquering 
New Sweden, a terrible calamity fell upon the 
Dutch behind him in the settlement. The 
Indians, realizing that this would be a fortunate 
time for attack, swarmed through New Amsterdam 
one da}-. The people, knowing their helplessness, 
treated them with as much policy as possible, and suc- 
ceeded in getting them to leave the place at sunset and 
cross to Governor's Island. It was hoped that, by a 
conference between the chiefs and the magistrates, some 
arrangements for peace might be made, but it was not 
yet night when the Indians grew bolder, and the militar\- 
had to be called from the fort to protect the people. 
The Indians fled before the soldiers, took once more to 
their canoes and paddled out across the dark waters, yelling and howling 
as they went. The people watched with anxiety to see what would 
happen next, and in a short time a light springing up over Pavonia 
and Hoboken told them that the Indians had fallen upon the helpless 
settlers there. In a little while the fires died down, and at New 
Amsterdam they knew that Pavonia and Hoboken were burned to the 
ground and the people killed. As it proved later, only one man of 
each settlement was left alive, but the women and children were carried 
away as prisoners. The people at Staten Island knew neither of the 
threatenings of the Indians at New Amsterdam or of the destruction of 



man's inhumanity to man. 13T 

the villages, and were sleeping when the savages, mad with thirst for 
blood, came upon them. Twenty-three of the ninety people who lived 
among the beautiful hills of the island were killed, and all the houses 
were burned. 

And now the people would have given all they possessed for a 
glimpse of the one-legged old soldier whom they had so frequently 
abiised, and they sent for Stuyvesant with all possible haste. He 
returned, full of determination, and gave heart to the people as soon as 
he appeared among them, though now for three days the Indians had 
been everywhere, ravaging and killing. No man knew better than he 
when to fight and when to treat for peace, and now he urged the people 
to cultivate friendly relations with the Indians and to rescue the prisoners 
with ransoms. Far north upon the Hudson, at Rensselaerswyck, the 
sturdy young patroon. Van Rensselaer, had already been following this 
policy, and had secured a renewal of the treaty with the Mohawks, so 
that that part of the country was spared. For several years compara- 
tive peace was kept between the Dutch and the Indians, but in 1658 
trouble began. Peter Stuyvesant, after the massacre of 1655, just 
related, had induced the people to build fences about their villages 
and prepare themselves more carefully against attack. He also advised 
them to treat the Indians with fairness, but this they would not do, and 
the trouble of 1658 was brought about because a band of Indians were 
fired upon for being noisy and drunken. It is needless to say, however, 
that the whisky which put them in this condition was obtained from 
the Dutch. For this wanton killing the Indians took a prompt revenge 
by murdering farmers and burning their houses, and for six years the 
Esopus Indians and the Dutch were almost continually at war with each 
other. In 1663 the Indians fell upon the village of Wildwyck, plunder- 
ing the houses and setting fire to them. Many men were killed, and 
over forty women and children taken as prisoners. Then the Dutch 
were aroused to a wholesome resistance, which ended in a subduing of 
the Indians for a short time. 

But, in spite of all this discouragement. New Netherland continued 
to prosper. Gradually, the people gained power and their governors 
yielded some of their arbitrary rights. The English towns upon Long 
Island became more numerous, but for the most part they lived quietly 
with their Dutch neighbors. Much less religious than the Massachusetts 
government, there was far less persecution among them. Holland was 
the most tolerant of countries, and her colony kept, to a certain degree, 
the policy which had animated the mother countr}- in dealing with men 



132 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

of new and unpopular religions. Yet at one time the Lutherans were 
forbidden to hold meetings in New Amsterdam, and a poor shoemaker 
was imprisoned for addressing them. The Quakers, too, were persecuted 
for a time, but it could hardly be expected that any class of men, how- 
ever patient, would care to be railed against as the Dutch were by the 
Quakers. The women who spoke upon the streets against the steeple 
houses, the hireling preachers and the empty ceremonies to which the 
Quakers so intensely objected, were thrown into prison. One Friend, 
Robert Hodgson, was treated most shamefully, being chained to a 
wheelbarrow and made to do hard work, while a negro beat him with a 
four-inch tarred rope. At night he was thrust into a dungeon. This 
continued for several days. His sentence condemned him to hard labor 
two years, but at length he was terribly whipped for speaking his 
message to those about him, and was so torn with the rods that his life 
was despaired of for a time. A sister of Peter Stiiyvesant prayed that 
he might be released. When Hodgson recovered he was released, but 
banished. The Quakers increased rapidly, as they always did where 
they were persecuted. Finally, a quiet English farmer who professed 
the faith was sent to Holland to appear before the directors in Amster- 
dam. Peter Stuyvesant's ambition to have the sect crushed had 
overleaped itself, for the directors of Amsterdam reproved him severely 
for the manner in which he had treated these people, and told him that 
everyone in the colony should be allowed to follow his own conscience. 
After this, the Friends were no longer molested, and the director had 
the grace to be a little ashamed of his actions. 

Slavery was rapidly increasing in New Amsterdam. By 1664, 
Africans were brought by hundreds to New Netherland, but the Dutch 
themselves were fond of agriculture, and did not grow to have that 
complete dependence upon the negro which the Virginians had. 
Slavery, therefore, never developed its worst feature among the Dutch. 
The English kept steadily encroaching upon the land which the Dutch 
claimed. Lord Baltimore asserted that the whole South river region 
was included in his patent, and sent a delegation from Maryland to 
demand a surrender for the province. The people in the vSoutli river 
country were willing enough to yield. They were dissatisfied with the 
management of the Dutch West India Company, and were perfectly 
willing to swear allegiance to any who would give them more comforts 
and protection. The claims remained unsettled until after the surrender 
of New Netherlands. Then the Dutch and Swedes of the South river 
district quietly yielded to the government of England. New Haven 



man's inhumanity to man. 133 

and the other English towns along the Sound and on Long Island were 
brought under the jurisdiction of Connecticut, by a grant of land which 
John Winthrop got from Charles II. This new patent covered not only 
Long Island, but all northern New Netherland. 

Peter Stuyvesant was greatly alarmed for the independence of his 
countrymen. For two years he fought it as best he could. He was a 
man of statesmanlike ability and his policy was clever, but the English 
were very determined. They sent men to stir up discontent in the 
English towns situated in New Netherland, and forced Stuyvesant to 
consent that the Dutch should not interfere in the least with the English 
towns in his province. One John Scott was sent to inquire into the 
English titles upon Long Island and carried with him the news that the 
King had granted all Long Island to the Duke of York. The English 
towns of that district, Hempstead, Gravestead, Flushing, Newton and 
Jamaica, united, choosing John Scott as their president. He started 
through Long Island, with a force of one hundred and fifty men, to 
reduce the Dutch towns to obedience, but he succeeded in doing but 
little, and was finally imprisoned by the magistrates at Hartford for 
asserting his own rights, instead of those of the country he represented. 

The English continued to buy up ground from the Indians which 
the Dutch had already purchased from them, and the King kept on 
giving grants of land to his favorites, which included the territory that 
the Dutch had long occupied. In April,. 1664, a force of three or four 
hundred men under the command of Colonel Richard Nicolls, who 
acted as Lieutenant-Governor for the Duke of York, sailed for England 
to enforce the Duke's claims to New Netherland. Peter Stuyvesant 
heard of it, and did all he could to prevent it. To him, Dutch 
independence was more than life. He had the fortifications repaired 
and enlarged, raised money, procured ammunition, stored provisions in 
the fort and drilled his men, but in the midst of these preparations he 
got word from the West India Company saying that the fleet under 
Nicolls had been sent to force the obedience of the Massachusetts 
colonies, and that New Netherland need have no fear. Stuyvesant 
believed that this was so, and went up to Fort Orange on business. 

Though it was true that Nicolls had come to see to Massachusetts 
affairs, he had also come to reduce New Netherland, and, in the course 
of a month, brought his four ships up the bay before New Amsterdam. 
His men seized the block-house on Staten Island and blockaded the 
harbor. Then a proclamation was sent out that none should be harmed 
who submitted quietly to the King of England. Stuyvesant hurried 



134 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

down from Fort Orange, and prepared to make a defence, but no one 
would stand by him. When he tore up a letter from Nicolls demanding 
surrender, the people made him put it together again, and the mortified 
old Governor, who would so gladly have died for the sake of his colony, 
had to yield to them. He stood on the walls of the fort by the side ot 
a gun while the ships passed by him up the harbor and dropped their 
anchors near the fort. He did not order the gunner to fire. He feared, 
perhaps, that his people would not sustain him, and that in the end the 
Dutch would suffer more for such an act, but it can be imagined that 
his proud old heart broke at the humiliation. 

He wrote to Nicolls asking that a consultation might be held, but 
received answer that the white flag must be hung from the fort or 
Nicolls would come upon the town with ships and soldiers. The people 
of the town got up a petition asking Stuyvesant to yield. They said 
that they could see nothing but defeat, with all its terrors, before them, 
whereas if they yielded, the enemy generously promised them protec- 
tion. The hired soldiers in the fort were as ready to prey upon the 
town as to fight the Englishmen. Stuyvesant knew this, and on 
September 8, 1664, New Netherland surrendered. The troops were 
put on a ship bound for Holland, and the English flag was raised over 
Fort Amsterdam, which was henceforth called Fort James. The 
Englishmen called New Amsterdam New York, and Fort Orange was 
given its present name of Albany. 

A few weeks later, New Amstel, on the Delaware, was reduced, and 
the Dutch no longer had any authority on American soil. They 
seemed to take very kindly to their change of government, and matters 
went on with them very much the same as they had before. There 
was no feeling of bitterness between the two nations, and the English 
had the wisdom to appoint some of the Dutch to the government of 
oflfices. The city officers were left unchanged. Patroons owning the 
great outlying tracts of land had only to change their patent and take 
an oath of allegiance to England. The Duke of York gave many 
grants of land to Englishmen. New Netherland was divided into two 
provinces, one of which was given to Lord Berkeley, the elder brother 
of Sir William Berkeley, of Virginia, and the other to Sir George 
Carteret. Carteret's province was named New Jersey, and in June, 
1665, Captain Philip Carteret, a brother of the proprietor, arrived as 
Governor, with a company of men. He settled his thirty emigrants 
at the point which he named, and which is still known as Elizabeth- 
point. In 1666, Newark was settled by a party from Connecticut. 



man's inhumanity to man. 135 

These were joined in a little time by English people from other settle- 
ments, who made it a condition of their joining the company, that none 
should be admitted as freemen, or have the right to vote or hold office, 
who were not members of the Congregational Church. 

Massachusetts was much alarmed with the fear that it might be 
forced to come under the Duke of York's patent. The Duke of York was 
a Catholic, and to have been placed under his authority would be the 
greatest pain for the Puritans which could be imagined. She, there- 
fore, refused to help Nicolls, although Connecticut and New Haven 
gave them what help they could against the Dutch. After the surrender 
of New Netherland, the Duke's commissioners held a conference with 
representatives from Connecticut, and the boundary lines of the 
provinces were decided upon, Long Island being given to New York. 
The Duke's laws were put in force, and though there were objections to 
some portions, they were accepted in peaceful discontent. Nicolls 
ruled for about three years, while England and Holland, on the other 
side of the world, were engaged in war. When peace was declared, 
Nicolls asked that he might be permitted to go home. He had always 
greatly resented the loss of New Jersey, and thought the Duke of York 
had made a great mistake in giving away this beautiful country. 
Colonel Francis Lovelace succeeded Nicolls as Governor. He served 
very honorably for four years. In no colony of America were so many 
people of different nations and tongues gathered. At the time of the 
surrender of New Netherland eighteen different languages were spoken 
in New Amsterdam. Though it was under English rule, it continued 
to be Dutch in its peculiarities. The people were hospitable and kindly, 
though ver}' simple and a little slow. They educated their children 
with care, and were proud of their respectability. The houses were well 
built and their inhabitants solid and worthy citizens. Their gardens 
and orchards prospered wonderfully. Along the river bank were lines 
of locust trees, under which the people walked in the evening. A 
canal was built to help commerce and a bridge constructed over it. An 
exchange was started for trading purposes and commerce rapidly 
increased. The fort held forty pieces of cannon, and was well built, 
being of stone, with a thick rampart of earth. Within this stood the 
mansion of the Governor. 

In 1672 Peter Stuyvesant died, at the age of eighty, and was buried 
in the little chapel which he had built upon his farm. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Whitehead's "New Jersey. " 
Fiction — Paulding's "Dutchman's" Fireside" and "Book of St. Nicholas." 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



POLITICAL POLICY OF MASSACHUSETTS — EFFORTS OF ENGLAND TO 

RECOVER THE CHARTER — EDWARD RANDOLPH — COIN OF THE 

COLONY — SIR EDMUND ANDROS — THE EPISODE OF 

THE CONNECTICUT CHARTER — ARREST OF 

ANDROS AND ELECTION OF PHIPS — 

DEATH OF PHIPS. 



F,RO]\I the first, Massachusetts, as a colony, had 
been ambitious for political independence. 
Though the commonwealth had in it little 
liberty, it was in many respects excellent. The 
people were determined, and determination is 
the best corner-stone of government. No good 
intentions can make up for weakness. If the 
people of Massachusetts erred, it was upon the side of 
too much sternness and inflexibility of purpose. 
Thc}- believed that there was a right way of doing 
things; that their way was the right way, and all 
other ways were wrong. Liberty of conscience seemed 
vicious to them — for was not the conscience capable 
of great error? But being so determined in religious 
matters, made them equally so in political affairs, and no wheedling 
diplomacy or threatenings of the government of England could make 
them lose sight of their charter, which they loved as dearly as their 
own lives, and which they protected with no little danger to themselves. 
Charles I had insinuated that the)- were governing without authority, 
and in man}- different ways had tried to get them to return their charter 
to England. His letters were passed over without replies from tlie 
colonial government. To refuse directly, would have been treason. To 
consent, would have been loss of liberty. To keep silent, w-as to con- 
tinue a delay which might end in victory for them. 




OUR COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG. 1 37 

At this time the King had prohibited the Puritans from leaving 
England for IMassachusetts, and on several occasions had made com- 
panies of them disembark from the ships on which they had taken 
jDassage. Two of the men who took passage for Massachusetts among 
the company of Puritans were Cromwell and John Hampden. Had 
they been allowed to get away, the most attractive of the Stuarts might 
have kept his head upon his shoulders. After the King was dead and 
the Long Parliament was in session, the charter was again threatened, 
but the temporizing policy of the colonists again stood them in good 
stead. They wrote a letter to Cromwell which touched that religious 
strain he held in common with the Puritans of Massachusetts, and won 
his valuable friendship. At one time he was seized with an idea 
of removing the Massachusetts people to the Island of Jamaica, that the}- 
might undertake the conversion of the Catholics about there, but the 
general court pointed out the bad economy of such a step, and the matter 
was dropped. When Charles H was restored to the throne, the two 
regicides, Whalley and Goff, fled to America. Massachusetts, in sym- 
pathy, of course, with the Protestant revolution, protected these men, 
and when a royal order was sent for their surrender, succeeded in 
helping them to escape. But at the next general court a letter was 
given to Charles II which protested the loyalty of the colony, and 
asked for the protection of their government. The King sent a reply, 
but demanded again the surrender of the regicides. The Massachusetts 
people met this with their usual irritating silence, and the King's feel- 
ing toward them ceased to be amiable. 

In May, 1661, two men were sent to investigate the humor of 
the colony and see why it refused to obey the King and return 
the charter. The people explained as well as they could that it was 
the foundation of their colony and their protection ; that they were loyal 
to the home government, and desired a royal confirmation of the 
charter. It was granted, but with conditions which the colonists deeply 
resented. Every ordinance passed during the rule of Cromwell was to 
be pronounced invalid. Members of the Church of England should be 
free to worship as the}- chose, and all should have the right of suffrage, 
without regard to their religious opinions. As none but the Puritans, 
who worship after the Congregational method, were allowed to vote, 
this was naturally very displeasing to the Massachusetts people. 

A few years later the royal commissioners, under Nicolls, came 
to secure the conquest of New Netherland, and incidentally to enforce 
the obedience of the Massachusetts colony to the King. This commis- 



138 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

sion returned to England after the surrender of New Amsterdam. 
There had been a thorough attempt on the part of this commission to 
enforce the authority of the King, but the general court was quite as 
firm. Its conscience would not allow it, it said, in Puritanic phrase, to 
swear allegiance to the King except under the protection of the 
charter. The commissioners returned to England baffled. Then came 
the great plague of London, and after that the historic fire. The 
colony was prompt to send all the assistance it could. Its generosity 
was remarkable, considering its size. By this time New Hampshire 
and Maine were included in the government of Massachusetts, and the 
spars sent to England from Maine forests were invaluable to an army 
engaged in naval warfare, as the English were with the Dutch at this 
time. 

These evidences of loyalty might have conciliated the home 
government had not the dissatisfaction felt toward the colonies been 
kept alive by Edward Randolph, a man who had been sent to settle the 
question of the New Hampshire government previous to its incorpora- 
tion with Massachusetts. This man was heartily hated in Massachu- 
setts. He was far too good a servant of the King, and carried stories 
to him which greatly damaged the colony in the royal ears. Especially 
did he complain that they broke the navigation laws, which, under 
heavy taxations, confined and limited the trade of the colony. They 
admitted that they did so, but said it was necessary to their prosperity. 
They offered, however, to cover the matter by an act of their own. 
Randolph would have none of this. He asked the general court to 
help him, but they followed their usual policy by paying no attention. 
Even the Governor seems to have kept a discreet silence. 

Another charge brought against them was that they coined their own 
money, which none but the King had a right to do. One clever gentle- 
man who had visited New England was sent for by the King that he 
might learn something about the matter. This man, whose name was 
Thomas Temple, showed the King some of the colony coins. They 
were of the old pine-tree variety. The King looked at them suspiciously, 
but Sir Thomas, being something of a courtier, told the King that the 
pine tree upon them was a royal oak ; that the Massachusetts people did 
not dare to put the King's name upon their coin, and had, therefore, 
put on the oak, which, as everyone knew, had preserved the King's 
life. This money had followed wampum, the exchange of the Indians. 
At one time early in the histor>^ of Massachusetts musket bullets had 
been used in the place of money. There was a very large coinage of 



OUR COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG. 1 39 

the pine-tree money, and it was nsed for a long time. At last, in 168 1, 
came another letter from the King, asking that deputies should be sent 
to him to tender the submission of the colonies. Massachusetts dared 
delay no longer, and sent two men to England, armed with a letter of 
such firm pride that the King grew angry, and issued a writ against the 
colony, demanding to show by what warrant it held its charter. 

When Charles II died and James, his brother, became King of 
England, he put Sir Edmund Andros over all of New England. He 
was a proud Englishman of high birth, one of the old-time loyalists, 
who thought obedience to the King a much greater thing than the 
liberty of a people. His manner of living was very disagreeable to the 
Puritans. He gave large drinking parties and made much display of 
his wealth and authority, while it was their habit to live quietly. 

By this time many of the men of Boston were rich. They were 
naturally proud of all that they had done and the respect in which 
they were held, but their manners were without show. The loss of the 
charter which they so loved, the dissolving of the general court, and 
the setting up of an arrogant and selfish Governor over them, filled 
them with an angry discontent. Randolph, whom they so hated, was 
made licenser of the press, and other men as overbearing and disagree- 
able were put in office. No respect was shown for Puritan principles, 
and in the Old South Meeting-House, dedicated to Puritan worship, 
Governor iVndros insisted upon holding Episcopalian service. He 
levied taxes pretty much to please himself, and was filled with great 
indignation when the people protested. He even made the land- 
owners give up their titles to him for examination, and said that the 
deeds from the Indians were not worth the scratch of a bear's paw. He 
made conditions, however, by which these titles could become legal; 
but the people would not accept them, since it was a matter of conscience 
to them not to give approval to his rule. In New Hampshire, Andros 
had but little trouble. In Maine, he had succeeded in ousting the 
Baron Vincent de Chastine, Lieutenant of the French government of 
Acadia. 

His next work was to deprive Connecticut of its charter. In vain did 
the people protest. They set forth all they had suffered in subduing 
the soil and overcoming the Indians, and defended their claims to 
independence, but the plea had no efiect. Andros insisted upon having 
the charter. The distressed Connecticut magistrates sat about the table 
of the little council chamber listening with anxiety to the royal 
governor. They talked about the matter all the afternoon and until 



140 THE .STORY OF AMERICA. 

evening had deepened and the candles were lit. Outside of the building 
crowds of excited citizens gathered. Andros made a final demand for 
the charter. It was no gust of wind that blew out the candle. In the 
darkness, the charter disappeared. The crowd outside dispersed. They 
were contented. The Governor, baffled and furious, entered an account 
of the meeting upon the State records, and wrote "finis" at the end. 
No one in Connecticut appeared to know where the charter was. It 
was snugly hidden in a great oak tree on the grounds of Samuel 
Wallace, one of the magistrates. But Connecticut had lost its individ- 
uality. It was now a part of the royal province, and in a little while 
New York and New Jersey were also a part of New England, under 
Andros. 

But his authority was almost at an end. The pride of the people 
could stand no more, and when they heard that William of Orange had 
landed in England and the throne of King James was tottering, they 
wrote and read to the citizens of Boston a declaration of their inde- 
pendence from royal rule. This was read from the balcony of the 
town-house, on which were gathered the most prominent men of Boston. 
On Beacon Hill, tar barrels were blazing. All through the streets 
the boys were beating drums. Flags flew bravely over the city. The 
declaration declared that it rejoiced that the Prince of Orange was upon 
the throne of England and that the power of the Stuarts had been over- 
thrown. The royal servants were arrested and thrown into jail, Andros 
among them. Simon Bradstreet was made president. He was eight)-- 
seven years of age, but he was strong with the detenu ination of the 
Puritans. 

The Massachusetts deputies, who visited the Prince of Orange, had 
permission to use their old charter until a new one could be made. 
This hardly satisfied the people, but the}- were better contented when 
Sir William Phips was made Governor of New England. Phips had 
been born on the Kennebec, in Maine, and was therefore welcomed b>' 
the colonists. He had been a sheep-tender on the Maine hills, and had 
worked as a carpenter in the great Maine shipping yards. He mar- 
ried a Boston widow who had money enough to start him in business. 
Having a romantic character, he built him a ship for the purpose of 
dragging lost Spanish treasures from the sea. He went to the West 
Indies and hunted about for the sunken Spanish galleys which had lain 
there for years. One of these he found, but did not get a large amount 
of spoils, and was anxious to search for another wliich he thought more 
valuable. He soon interested the King of England in his project, and 



OUR COUNTRY, RIGHT OR WRONG. 141 

was given a man-of-war, well fitted in all respects. For two years he 
searched without effect, having many odd experiences, and successfully 
stopping a mutiny of his sailors. 

In spite of his failure to secure the Spanish treasure, he had so 
much determination and eloquence that he was equipped for a second 
voyage. This time he found the ship, richly laden with treasure. He 
received a good share of the bullion, coin and plate, and was given a 
cup, valued at one thousand pounds, by the Duke of Albemarle, who had 
sent out the expedition. 

The King knighted him, and he returned to New England, wealthy 
and famous. It was this man who was appointed Governor of New 
England. It was during Phips' administration that a fleet was sent 
northward for the purpose of subduing Canada. The idea was to take 
Quebec and Montreal. The New England soldiers fared badly. They 
sailed along the coast and up the St. Lawrence in so lazy a way that 
Frontenac had time to prepare for defence. Phips was not a soldier, and 
Wallace, who was with him, was a coward. The combination was 
fatal. They made continual mistakes, and at last, with many men lost 
and many more sick, were obliged to turn their ships toward Boston. 
One of the ships was never heard of, one of them burned, and a third 
was wrecked. 

The expense of the expedition had been so great as to bankrupt the 
treasur}^, and it was necessary to issue paper bonds. These soon fell in 
value thirty-three per cent. , and Phips redeemed them from the soldiers, 
to whom they had been paid, with money from his own private fortune. 
He also made an expedition to Maine, against the Indians, with but 
small results. His impulsiveness and generosity was not sustained by 
wisdom or quiet detennination. Though a picturesque and attractive 
man, he did not make a good Governor, and the vexations of his office 
did not improve his temper, which was always hot. At length he was 
ordered to England to answer certain charges against him, and in 
London, in 1694, he died of a fever. He was one of the most adven- 
turous and romantic of all the men who at that time distingushed 
American history. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Trumbull's "Connecticut." 
Fiction— W. Seaton's "Romance of the Charter Oak." 
R. Dawes' "Nix's Mate " 
E. Charles' "On Both Sides of the Sea." 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



^a^$ nf |)rBHh. 



KING PHILIP'S WAR — FIGHT AT BROOKFIELD FIGHT AT HADLEV- 

A^ V^ .--. FIGHT AT DEERFIELD. 



ORTY years after the destruction of the 
Pequots, there broke over the New England 
colonies another wave of Indian war. Phips 
was in England, and William Stoughton, the 
Lieutenant Governor, was attending to the 
colonial affairs. There had been no direct 
and flagrant insult to the Indians which prompted 
this, but, through all the long years, there had been a 
contemptuous treatment of them. For one thing, the 
Indian did not understand that when land was 
purchased of him for a few blankets, or scissors, that 
he was to yield it up forever. His understanding 
of it was that he gave the white man permission 
to come upon it; but when the white man came 
and steadily drove him out, when his friends were treacherously 
murdered, or sold to slavery, he perceived too late what was intended. 
The Narragansetts had much reason to hate the Englishmen. The\- 
had never forgotten the treacherous murdering of their young and 
beloved chief, Miantonomo. He had been executed, without cause, by 
the Massachusetts commissioners, away back in 1643, ii^ore to please 
Uncas, the Mohican chief, who was the friend of the whites, than for 
any offence which he had committed. At the present time, the son of 
Miantonomo was reigning over the Narragansetts, and he allied himself 
to Philip, the second son of Massasoit, the sachem of the Wampanoags. 
Massasoit, it will be remembered, had been a good friend of the 
pilgrims of Plymouth at the time when they needed friends. In 1660 
he died, leaving two sons, to whom he had given English names, 
Alexander and Philip. A year after Massasoit's death, the elder of 




DAYS OF DREAD. 1 43 

these brothers, Alexander, was carried as a prisoner to Plymouth, 
because he was suspected of joining the Narragansetts for the purpose 
of moving against the English; but the chief died before they reached 
Plymouth. His wife, who was a queen among the Indians, believed 
that they had poisoned Alexander. When, fourteen years later, she 
heard that her brother-in-law, Philip, was going to make an effort to 
wipe out the bitter injustice and humiliation which had come to the 
Indians in all those trying years, she took her three hundred warriors and 
joined him. It was a fatal move for her. Within a year all but twenty- 
six of her braves were killed, and the young queen, tr^-ing to swim the 
river, was drowned. When the Englishmen found her body washed 
ashore, they cut her head from her comely shoulders, and set it up 
where her disheartened warriors could see it, and around it the broken- 
hearted braves set up a most dismal wailing. 

Philip, himself, was a man with many friends. The natural vigor 
and determination of his character, his frank and convincing way of 
speaking, his upright carriage, and penetrating eye, forced the admira- 
tion of all. He had tried to treat the white man with fairness; had 
answered to his many unjust suspicions with dignity and calmness, 
but in return had received many wounds which rankled. He was 
made to deliver up all the English arms which his tribe possessed. 
This humiliated him and his tribe deeply. Another incident irritated 
him also. One of the Indians whom Eliot had converted, warned the 
people at Plymouth that there was a growing anger among the Indians, 
and danger that they might soon break into war. The Indians probably 
learned of the story which the man had told, for he was found 
murdered and thrust into the ice of the river. Three Indians were 
accused of the deed, and a trial by jury was held, in which six white 
men and six Indians were impaneled. The accused Indians were 
executed. Philip hastened preparations for war. On a fair June day 
in 1675, the people of Swansea appointed a day of prayer and fasting 
that they might be spared from the horrors of war. Going home from 
church, a man wa^ killed by an Indian in ambush. Several were 
wounded, and two who hastened for a surgeon were killed. Over by 
the garrison six more men were killed. A number of houses and bams 
were burned. This was the beginning of the war. It was the torch, 
so to speak, which called together the bands of savages. All through 
the remote settlements many houses were burned and much property 
destro}-ed. Cattle were driven away, and frequently farmers were 
murdered. Eighteen houses were destroyed in Providence. Through 



144 '^HE STORY OF AMERICA. 

the months of July and August these crimes went steadily on. In 
August the general court sent a number of men to hold a peace confer- 
ence with some Indians at Brookfield. The Indians did not appear 
there as they had promised to do, and Captain Wheeler, with twenty 
men, went to look for them. The Indians had prepared an ambush for 
them, and eight of the twenty Englishmen were killed. The captain 
and many others were wounded. The}' hurried to Brookfield to give 
the alarm to the people. Pell-mell the men, women and children 
rushed into the strong house in the settlement. Three hundred savages, 
as mad as wolves at the taste of blood, thronged into the village. They 
burned every house except the one where the frightened people were 
gathered. 

For two days and nights the men in that log cabin held out. The 
Indians had ammunition and guns, and kept up the fight from all sides. 
At night they would crawl along the ground and build fires against the 
walls of the building. They tied fire-brands to poles and tried to thrust 
them through the cracks in the logs, and attached burning stuff" to their 
arrows. But the fires were put out by the besieged. Even when 
burning sulphur was poured upon the roof, it was extinguished. The 
white men had become as cunning as the savages. They could fight 
them upon their own ground. The- third morning came, and with it 
despair. The Englishmen felt they could not hold out much longer. 

The Indians prepared a terrible machine. It was a cart piled high 
with hay and hemp, and blazing fiercely. This was pushed up against 
the building. It seemed as if there could be no escape. Either the 
brave men must see their wives and children burn there in the fire, or 
what was worse, let them suffer the horrors of Indian captivity. Pray- 
ing and weeping, the women prepared to take their children in their 
anns and venture out; but at that moment a cloud overspread the sky. 
There was a clap of thunder and a sudden down-pour of summer rain. 
The fire was extinguished. So wet did the building get that there was 
no longer any chance of burning it. The besieged held out during the 
afternoon, and before evening. Major Simon Willard, of Boston, with fifty 
or sixty men, dashed into the town and routed the Indians, eighty of 
whom were killed or wounded. 

The war spread steadily. Philip's influence was great. He went 
from tribe to tribe, haranguing, encouraging and threatening. Those 
he could not win to his side in any other way he bought up with 
wampum and gifts. No white man felt safe at this time. Every house 
and every church was an arsenal in which ammunition was stored. 



DAYS OF DREAD. 1 45 

Men carried their arms ever>-where, to church, to dinner and to bed. 
Flint-locks were already known in America, although they were not yet 
in use in England. 

The stories which could be told of this time would fill volumes, so 
many were hurried into captivity, so many tortured and mutilated. 
One of the fiercest fights was at Hadley, on the Connecticut, three or four 
weeks after the Brookfield fight. Hadley was a place for military- 
supplies and had a garrison. Most of the soldiers were away at the 
time, and as at Swansea, the people were holding a feast day. Some one 
brought the alarm that the Indians were coming. Men had their arms 
at hand, and gathered about the door, while the women and children 
crowded into the corners of the building. The meeting-house was not 
a strong structure, and the Indians made an unusually savage onslaught. 
Resistance looked almost useless. The men were unnen-ed with fear. 
As the Indians surged up, and the first men who ventured to the open 
door were met with well-directed arrows, they fell back with despair in 
their faces. Suddenly an old man stood among them. No one had 
seen him before. He was tall and soldierly, with masses of flowing 
grey hair about his shoulders. He drew his sword like one used to 
wars, and stepping out with intrepid bravery, led the colonists to an 
attack. No one asked who he was. They simply felt that God had 
sent a deliverer. The Indians were chased to the woods, into whose 
murky depths they disappeared, and the colonists looked about for their 
leader, but he was gone. Not till long after did they know that it was 
Colonel Goff, the regicide, who was then in hiding at Hadley, and on 
whose head the King of England had fixed a price. No soldier with 
his experience could see a crowd of brave men perish for the want of 
a leader. 

On the very same day Deerfield was attacked, and here, later in the 
month, the people were fired upon as they were going to the meeting- 
house. The block-house at Northfield was besieged, and a number of 
persons killed. 

Near Hadley a company of young men, eighty in number, were 
sent out to complete the threshing and load the wagons with grain. 
They were under the command of Captain Lathrop. In these days a 
soldier was at the head of every venture. Returning in the middle of 
the month to Hadley, the company stopped in a large grove beside a 
brook, and tbe men broke their ranks and rested themselves in a 
pleasant spot. Suddenly, with no warning, seven hundred savages 
were upon them, and only seven of the men escaped. This was how 



146 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Bloody Brook got its name. Captain Mosley, who had been left behind 
to protect Deerfield, heard the firing, and hurried to the spot with one 
hundred and sixty men, part of whom were Mohegans. The attacking 
Indians were driven off. 

The English, realizing that there was no prospect of peace, decided 
that it was best to begin a systematic warfare. Soldiers were^ called for. 
Massachusetts gave five hundred and' twenty men, Connecticut three 
hundred, and Plymouth one hundred and fifty-nine. The r^Iohegan 
Indians gave one hundred and fifty warriors. The idea was to march 
under Governor Winslow, of Plymouth, to the country of the Narragan- 
setts, in Rhode Island. There they had a strong fort, occupying six 
acres of dry ground. About it was a swamp, and beyond this a high 
palisade, protected by a chevaiix-dc-friese. There was a deep snow on 
the ground by this time, for it was now December. To reach the one 
entrance of the fort, it was necessar>' to get over a log as high as a man's 
breast. Under a fire from the Indians, four Massachusetts captains were 
killed, and three of the Connecticut leaders. But Captain Benjamin 
Church, putting those firm lips of his together, marched around to the 
rear, and entered there, carrying three bullets in him, but still in 
fighting condition. The savages were driven out into the swamp and 
beyond that, leaving seven hundred dead behind them. Three hundred 
of their wounded men died later. A great many of the old and feeble 
were burned in the wigwams which the Englishmen were foolish enough 
to fire, within the fort. The colonists also lost heavily. 

In spite of this terrible battle, Philip was determined not to yield. 
He felt, no doubt, that it was the turning point in his countr}-men's 
histor>'. If they lost their independence now, it would never be 
regained, but if they could succeed in exterminating the hated English, 
all might be as before. Solitude would be theirs again, and libert}- 
their own. They could paddle their canoes at peace upon the wild 
rivers. The deer would return to the forest. The clam banks upon 
the coast would be unmolested. They would no longer be the victims 
of the white man's pride and cupidity. In February, Lancaster was 
attacked, but after that, for a month or two, affairs were quiet, and the 
colonists were rarely disturbed. In ]\Ia)-, a large party of Indians 
gathered on the desolated fields by Deerfield, and began planting them. 
This news was brought to Hatfield, and Captain Turner rode twenty 
miles, with one hundred men at his back, reaching the Indians in the 
night. The roar of the fall on the river kept the horses' hoofs from 
being heard. Leaving the horses in the ravine, the soldiers fell upon 



DAYS OF DREAD. 1 47 

the Indians jus^ at day-break. The Indians, dazed with sleep and 
entirely unprepared for the attack, could not do themselves justice. One 
hundred and forty of them took to their canoes, but, in the panic, went 
over the falls and perished. Many were shot, and others took refuge in 
the rocks, or were put to the sword. Turner lost but one man; the 
Indians lost three hundred. But another large party of Indians, not far 
distant, heard the fight, and soon overtook Turner and his men. The 
brave captain was killed, with many of his followers, but most of them 
reached Hatfield safely. 

Philip had a fishery near the falls, from which he had intended to 
provide his men for the winter, and the breaking up of this greatly dis- 
turbed him. He made an attack upon Hatfield, but was defeated, and 
soon after he led seven hundred Indians against Hadley again, but 
many of them were slain and they were obliged to hastily retreat. 
Then he moved farther south. Town after town was sacked and 
burned. Now he was in Rhode Island, now in Connecticut, and now in 
Massachusetts. In these days every man became a fighter. Even the 
boys were enemies to be dreaded, and on more than one occasion whole 
families had been saved, in the absence of men, by the pluck and readi- 
ness of mere urchins. It w^as a great blow to the Indians when 
Nanuntenoo, the proud and revengeful son of Miantonomo, was taken 
captive. He was executed, of course, but was glad to die, so he said. 

All through the spring and summer of 1676 the colonies were in 
terrible fear. When Sudbury was attacked and partly burned, Captain 
Wadsworth, hurrying to the relief, was caught in ambush and killed, 
with sixty of his men. Captain Pierce was surprised, and his company 
of fifty Englishmen massacred. Only one of them escaped. Major 
Talcott, with a force of three hundred mounted men, surrounded 
a larger body of Narragansetts in a swamp in Rhode Island. All of 
them were either killed in the assault or put to death afterward. 

Philip was becoming discouraged. He saw that his men were 
breaking down under the strain. The white man had learned all his 
secrets. He understood the decoy, the night attack, and the stealthy 
waiting as well as the Indian, now, and to this he united greater 
endurance and courage in the face of heavy odds. Twice Philip had 
barely escaped capture. He had been obliged to disguise himself. At 
last, worn out and disheartened, he fled to his home on the isthmus of 
Mt. Hope. An Indian betrayed his whereabouts to Church. Church, 
whom Philip feared more than any other living man, started for the 
place at once. It was the middle of the night when he reached there. 



148 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Across a swamp, on a bit of upland, slept the crreat chief, with 
his Indians about him. The Englishmen sent a heavy fire into the 
camp. Philip sprang to his feet, gun in hand, and rushed forward. A 
minute later he was dead, with his face in the dark swamp water. 

The Indians could do little more. Their great leader, whose 
eloquence was such an inspiration to. them, whose courage was inex- 
haustible, and whose plans had been so daring and ingenious, was 
dead. The power of the Indians over all that section of the country 
was gone. Many rushed westward, and many, alas! serv^ed as slaves in 
the West Indies. Others sought the powerful friendship of the white 
men. All over New England there was mourning, for hardly a house 
had been left untouched by death. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Abbott's "History of King Philip. ' 
Fiction — R. C. Sands' "Yamoyden." 

Cooper's "The Wept of Wish-ton-wish." 
G. H. Hollister's "Mount Hope." 
Pierce's "Narragausett Chieft" 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



J[ ^nmn^ ^nhntss. 



HOW THE WITCH-CRAFT HALLUCINATION STARTED— SAMUEL PARRIS 
AND HIS WITCH-CRAFT LIBRARY — THE TRIAL AND DEATH 
OF GILES COREY AND OTHER VICTIMS OF 
THIS HALLUCINATION. 



T is a pity that children should have been respon- 
sible for some of the most dreadful crimes which 
disgraced New England. It was they who started 
what is known as the witch-craft delusion. It was 
a strange time. In Europe, as in America, the 
people were morbid, A series of misfortunes made 
them open to this disease of the mind, which physicians 
now recognize as a sort of hysteria, but which at that 
time even the wisest and best of men supposed to be the 
work of the devil. Every one believed that there were 
witches, and the Bible said that witches should be hung. 
Men like Bacon went to the trouble of inventing a 
medicine for witches' ointment. Statesmen made laws 
concerning it. Ministers preached about it from the 
pulpit. To tell hideous stories of bewitched people about the win- 
ter fireside was one of the favorite amusements. Every one who wore 
scarlet, or who chanced to be peculiar, was sure to be thought a witch. 
This fearful disease had raged in Europe for a good many years before 
it reached the new world. So extensive had it become that a great 
many books had been written on the subject, and these books had been 
brought in considerable numbers to America. Samuel Parris, a man 
who had been a merchant in Barbadoes, but who had become a minister 
upon moving to Salem, had a number of these books in his library. In 
a town where books were comparatively few, they were naturally much 
borrowed and read, and appealed, as the horrible and mysterious always 
does, to the imagination of the people in general, and to children in 




j-Q THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

particular. In Parris' family also was Tituba, an old slave, half 
negro and half Indian. She knew all the ways of witch-craft, and it was 
supposed that she could conjure up spirits with her black, bony hands, 
or, if she chose, ride through midnight storms, safely seated on a broom- 
stick. Not only has she figured in histor}-, but in fiction and poetry, 
and all who know anything about those dreadful days know about 
Tituba and John Indian, her husband. . Tituba had a habit of secretly 
gathering the children of the Parris and neighboring families into the 
kitchen, and there, by the flickering light of the fire, when the house 
was still and the old people away, she taught them all the dark secrets 
of her imaginar}^ art, and instructed them in the way the bewitched 
children acted, telling them about the little Goodwin girl whom Cotton 
Mather had taken to live with him because she was bewitched. He 
wished to have her near him that he might study the actions of Satan 
in her, and it was through watching her that he came to believe in 
witch-craft, and did so much harm by advocating it. The little Good- 
win girl had accused a quiet Irish washer- woman of having bewitched 
her. Whenever the woman came near, she fell into spasms and sank 
upon the ground. Three other children did as they saw her do, and the 
poor washer-woman was hanged. Tituba told these stories with delight, 
and the company of little girls practiced the actions of the bewitched. 
The children imagined such dreadful things that at last they were 
really no longer able to control themselves, but did really suffer almost 
as much as they had at first pretended to. So dreadfully did they act 
that doctors were called to visit them. They immediately said they 
were bewitched. The next thing then was to find the witches. The 
Reverend .Parris, believing as he did in the existence of such a thing, 
was not illy pleased to have it come within his reach. If he really did 
not encourage the children in the matter, he at least influenced them to 
declare against his enemies. The first person they cried out against was 
Sarah Goodwin. She was accused of pinching them, and running pins 
and needles into them. The justices tried her, and sent her to prison. 
Many more were sent after her. Then came the charge against Giles 
Corey, a staunch old fanner, who was foolish enough to believe in 
witch-craft. The children cried out that he tormented them, and they 
fell into a strange illness, so real that the people had no choice but to 
believe in their sufferings. Corey was pressed to death and treated with 
great contempt in ever)' way. The acquisitions came faster and faster. 
A court of seven judges was appointed to decide upon the many cases 
brought before them. Among the children the epidemic spread. So 



A PASSING MADNESS. 15I 

strong a hold did it have on them, that they actually declined until they 
were little more than skin and bones. A sort of second sight, or 
clair\^03^ancy, mingled with their hysteria, and the actual things which 
they foretold, or, being at a distance, correctly related, helped to confirm 
the popular belief. It got dangerous for one to have the least pecu- 
liarity. Any spot on the body — a mole or mark — was sufficient to convict 
one of being a witch. Gentle Rebecca Nourse, a farmer's wife, living 
in her own house and quietly tending her children, her house and her 
cows, was accused of being one of these baleful creatures, and was 
taken from her home, executed and thrown into the pit which was set 
apart for the witches. Christian burial not being allowed them. Here, 
at midnight, when no one was watching, came her little children and her 
husband to search for her poor body and give it a more gentle burial. 

Longfellow writes of Bridget Bishop, a jolly woman, fond of jests 
and bright dresses, who was condemned as much for wearing a scarlet 
petticoat as for anything else. Everyone who had an enemy saw a 
quick way of taking revenge upon him, by accusing him of being a 
party to the strange wickedness. The prison became crowded. As for 
the children, they seemed to have found themselves the most important 
and dreaded personages in the community. They grew very clever at 
imitating the people whom they accused of bewitching them, and chil- 
dren with soft voices acquired the power of talking like a man in deep, 
bass tones. It was not all imagination. It became insanity. One child, 
more conscientious than the rest, realized after a time that she did not 
feel all that she said she felt. She confessed, and accused the other 
children of deceit. The children promptly denounced her as a witch. 
But the matter had aroused the suspicions of the people. The wiser of 
them began to think it was a plot, and when at length Mrs. Hale, a 
woman of great beauty of character and of high station, was accused, 
the sympathy of the people was with her. Captain John Alden, a man 
of high character and good family, was accused. He made a sensible 
defence, which had no effect upon the justices, but at length he escaped. 
At last the children even dared to accuse the Governor's wife, and 
when they cam.e to imitating some members of the Mather family, 
even Cotton Mather, the Methodist divine, concluded there must be 
a mistake somewhere. The matter ended almost as suddenly as it had 
begun. Governor Phips released one hundred and fifty persons from the 
jail. Several hundred more had, at one time and another, been impris- 
oned there, but only twenty were killed — not counting the two poor 
dogs which were formally executed for being familiars of witches. 



1^2 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

For one especial cruelty was Parris responsible. He hated, with all 
the narrowness of a minister of the time, the Reverend Stephen 
Burroughs, who seems to have had a belief which did not exactly 
agree with that accepted as orthodox by the Salem people. Parris had 
him dri\'en out of the colony, and he took refuge with his family in 
]\Iaine. At the time of the witch-craft excitement Parris succeeded in 
getting him accused and having him brought awa}' down to Salem to be 
tried. An elder and two constables were sent to bring him, as Parris 
had chosen to given him the reputation of a dangerous man. He went 
with them cheerfully enough, having no thought that the matter was 
so serious. He was a remarkable man, of much animal magnetism, with 
a very commanding and penetrating eye, and all who came near him 
felt his influence. It was this power, added to his eloquence, which 
had made Parris jealous, and indeed had laid him open to suspicion, 
for it was not safe in those days to know \'ery much. He understood 
wood-craft as an Indian does, and being a man remarkabh- strong and 
unusually clever, had done many things which his more stupid asso- 
ciates could not understand. Having a reputation of this sort, the 
terrified constables and the elder who were sent after him were 
distracted when he insisted upon leading them at night through a 
pathless forest, the way which he knew as well as his own garden. A 
terrible storm, with most violent lightning, broke over them, fright- 
ening the horses, breaking the trees, and driving the men half mad with 
terror. To this day the spot in New Hampshire is called Witches' 
Trot. Once at Salem, all was over with him. He never went back to 
his wife and children beyond the forest. This dreadful chapter of 
Massachusetts history was very short. It was confined to the year 1692. 
In no time was it so sharp as it had been in the Old World, but it was 
bad enough, and made a great blot of ignorance and superstition on the 
fair page of native history. In 1720 a second attempt was made to stir 
np this old frenzy, but civilization had gone too far. The people would 
have none of it. 

FOR FURTHER READING; 
History — Upham's "History- of Witch-craft." 
Fiction — J. Neal's "Rachel Dyer." 
Poetry — I,ongfellow s "Giles' Corey." 

Whittier'-s "Witch of Wenhatn." 
Whittier's "Mabel Martin." 
Whittier'.s "Chaiii|;eliiiK." 
Whittier's "Wreck of Rivennouth." 




BE^7AMIX FRANKLIN. 

"TIIK VVR CAP." 
After an cu^raviiig- l)y Desnovers. 



CHAPTER XXX. 



jl ianibmsn. 



WILLIAM PENN — THE SETTLEMENT OF PENNSYLVANIA — REMARKABLE 
GROWTH OF THE COLONY — CHANGE OF GOVERNMENT — RE- 
STORATION OF PENN — HIS DEATH — THE SLAVERY 
I QUESTION — BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



great State of Pennsylvania was settled by the 
Quakers, or Friends, In speaking of Pennsyl- 
vania, it is necessary to speak of William Penn. 
He was the son of a noted admiral of England, 
who was not only a man of much intellect, but of 
great humor and affability as well. His mother 
was an unusual woman also, and gave her son 
lessons in kindness and amiability which influenced him 
all his life, and had no little effect upon the history of 
this country. From his earliest years he was unusual. 
When he was a school-boy of eleven, he had strange 
visions in which the works and glory of God were 
revealed to him. It was by such things as this that the 
growing Society of Friends was distinguished. But at 
this time, Penn knew nothing of the Friends nor the fre- 
quency of these visions in England. Yet Penn was no dreamer; he 
was a ga}', active boy, very strong of arm, capable of swift running, 
and fond of that jollity which forms so large a part of the schoolboy's 
life. In the course of time, a great preacher of the Society of Friends 
came to Oxford. Young Penn became a willing and enthusiastic 
convert. 

A short time after this, it was ordered that the surplice shotild 
be worn by the Oxford students. Penn could not permit this evidence 
of Episcopal pride to pass unchallenged. He and some of his friends 
tore the detested garments over the students' heads. He was expelled 
from school and banished from home. The tears of his mother, how- 
ever, softened the heart of the proud admiral, who forgave his son and 




154 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

sent him to Paris, in the hope that its alhirements might win him from 
his fantastic ideas; and for a time they did, and he was as gay and 
heedless as any of the )onths who lounged about Paris. He was bright 
and intelligent, and charmed London society with his graceful manner 
and witty speech ; but it was only a short time that he gave himself up 
to this light manner of living. Again he was drawn to the meetings of 
the Friends, and after this, sincerely devoted his life to their service. 
At one time he was fined for attending their meetings; at another he 
was thrown into the Tower for writing a book, setting forth their views, 
but wdiile there, he continued to write as his conscience prompted him. 
It was seven months before he was released. Soon after this, his father 
died, reconciled to his son's strange beliefs, and leaving him a 
large property, which Penn spent for the most part in the cause of the 
Friends. 

It was Penn's ambition to start a colony in the New World; already 
he had been interested in some settlements there. New Jersey, it will 
be remembered, had been granted to Lord Berkeley and Sir George 
Carteret, but the people of New Jersey protested against their ruling, 
which was overbearing and unfair. There had been an insurrection; 
two colonies had been made — East and West New Jersey — and Berke- 
ley had sold his share to a company of Quakers. William Penn was 
one of this company. A few years later. Sir George Carteret died, and 
his rights in East New Jersey were sold to twelve Quakers, and in this 
purchase William Penn had a share. But here there were so many 
Swedes, Dutch and Scotch, that no effort was made to make the 
colonies distinctly Quaker. Over these, Andros, the royal Governor, 
ruled. Penn was anxious, as has been said, to make a settlement of 
his own, and after his father died, he told the King, who was seriously 
in arrears with the admiral's pay, that he would liquidate this debt if he 
would give him a grant of territory in America. Penn's courtly air and 
handsome face and form, and his experience in diplomatic matters, stood 
him in very good stead. In 1680, he obtained a grant from Charles II, 
including forty thousand square miles of territory between Maryland 
and New York. To this the King gave the name of Pennsylvania. 
So well known was he in Europe, not only as the son of the dis- 
tinguished admiral, but as a man of great originality and courage, that 
the sturdy, industrious people of Germany, as well as those of his own 
country, were anxious to follow him. He did not, like George Fox, 
neglect everything aesthetic, and dress himself in a not very clean suit 
of leather, and though he wore the garb of the Friends, he saw to it 



A GENTLEMAN, 1 55 

that the fabric was good and the fit excellent. Dress and address are the 
two first things which one notices in a stranger. William Penn was 
too much of a statesman not to appreciate this. He knew that one 
could afford to be eccentric, but not disagreeable. It is not strange, 
however, that he was popular. 

His principles of government were of a broad nature. There was 
to be perfect liberty of conscience and political freedom for all — even 
the Indians. Only murder and treason were to be punished by death. 
Penn would not even have had these laws had he chosen himself, and 
while he lived, no gallows was ever erected in the province. He 
believed that a prison should be a place of reform. No oath was 
necessary to the man of good conscience. All pleasures which had in 
them any possibility of evil, such as cock-fighting, bull-baiting, card- 
playing and theatre-going, were forbidden. His scheme of government 
included one act which might be well imitated now — lying was 
punished as a crime. There was to be a trial by jury for all cases of 
injur}', and Indians were to be among the jury, whenever Indian 
rights were in question. A German company bought fifteen thousand 
acres from Penn, and hastened to emigrate thither in 168 1. It was in 
1682 before Penn and his friends set sail. Penn had an audience of the 
King, at which he astonished his Majesty by telling him that England 
had no right to molest the savages upon their own soil. "What," 
cried the King, "have I not the right of discovery ?" "Just suppose," 
said Penn, in his calm way, "that a canoe full of savages should 
by some accident discover Great Britain; would you vacate, or sell?" 
When Penn reached New Castle, on the 27th of October, the Dutch and 
Swedes gave him a very cordial welcome. He naturalized all the 
inhabitants of the province, and then hastened up the river to Upland, 
which is now Chester, where he met the delegates who had already 
been selected by his commissioners. This was the first assembly. 
Ever3-one caught the infection of his sincerity and gentleness, and the 
arrangements made there by the assembly were remarkable for their 
justice and liberality. 

Penn was delighted with the new country. The abundance of 
natural fruits and berries, the beauty of the woods and hills, and the 
clearness of the river, charmed him. He went up the river himself, 
looking for a suitable site for the prospective city, and decided upon 
the sweeping peninsula around which the Delaware flows. This he 
named Philadelphia, that all might know the sentiment which prompted 
its founding. Penn called it his "holy experiment." He laid out the 



156 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

city himself, upon a great scale of squares; all of the avenues to be 
lined with trees, and houses to be set so that they might be surrounded 
with gardens. In the first year twenty-three ships filled with colonists 
came to Penn's province. 

The Indians, for the first time, were treated with absolute equality; 
there was not a touch of the arrogance of the Spaniard, the sternness of 
the Puritans, the commercial greed of the Dutch, or the bewildering 
mysticism of the French Jesuits. Penn was simple and direct. He ate 
with the Indians, out-ran them in jocular contests, and tried leaping 
matches with the sprightly young braves. Under the famous elm tree 
at Shackamaxon, the old resort for Indian councils, he held a treaty 
with the Indians. He and his followers wore no arms, and Penn was 
distinguished from his followers only by a sash of blue silk netting, 
falling: like a soldier's scarf across his shoulders. The sachem of the 
Indians carried in his hand a chaplet, and when he donned this, the 
savages flung their arms to the ground, in token that the treaties were 
inviolable. The address which he made to the Indians won their hearts 
completely, and in a short time he had learned their language, and no 
longer had need of an interpreter. This increased his popularity among 
them. The driving bargains of his officers in after years were never 
laid to his charge. 

Very early in its history, Pennsylvania had a school. Enoch Flower 
was the teacher's name, and for four shillings a quarter he taught the 
bo)s and girls of Philadelphia ,to write, and for six shillings, to read. 
He would take boarding-scholars, giving them "diet, lodging, washing 
and schooling for ten pounds the year." Nor was it long before a 
printing press was set up. Penn had a friend, James Claypool, who 
was quite an eminent scholar, and who may have inspired these move- 
ments to an extent. Penn built him a mansion, called "Pennsbury 
Manor," at Bristol, on the Delaware river. Here he lived happily for 
two years, when he found it necessary' to go to England, to answer some 
of the charges which his envious enemies had brought against him. 
He remained in England fifteen years, during which time affairs did 
not run as quietly in the colony as might have been desired. There 
were religious quarrels and political quarrels, until the colonies were so 
misrepresented in England that the government was taken away from 
Penn and given to a royal commissioner. In 1694, however, William 
and Mary restored the province to Penn's absolute government — no one 
had ever questioned his proprietorship — and in 1699 Penn himself came 
from England, not a little wean- of courts and the friction of cosmo- 



A GENTLEMAN. 1 57 

politan life, intending to pass the remainder of his years in his beautiful 
home on the Delaware, surrounded by those who knew and appreciated 
his noble qualities of heart and mind. 

Not a little astonished was Penn when he saw Philadelphia, then a 
little more than eighteen years old. Doubtless he had carried in his 
mind's eye a picture of the colony as he left it, largely made up of 
rude huts, with chimneys of mud. When, therefore, he saw the noble 
city of over two thousand houses, most of which were built of brick, 
in that chaste, placid architecture of the Friends, and when he saw tl e 
wharfs and viaducts with their busy trade, he must have received quite 
a shock, in his sudden realization of the growth and success of his 
"holy experiment." He took for his own residence the slate-roofed 
house which stood in Second street, at the southeast corner of Norris' 
alley, until the year 1868, when it was torn down. 

John Penn, always called ' 'The American, ' ' to distinguish him from 
William Penn's other children, was born in this house, of Penn' s second 
wife, Hannah Callowhill, a delicate, sweet woman, whom Penn dressed 
with much pride in silks and jewels in spite of the stern Quaker regula- 
tions in regard to costume. She preferred the country seat up the 
Delaware, and here Penn lived the greater part of his time, in some- 
thing of that state in which he had been raised. The house stood upon a 
hill, and was approached by an avenue of poplars. On one side ran 
the river, with the bank terraced down to it. The lawns were as well 
kept as the greener ones of England, and the gardens were planted, not 
alone with trees indigenous to Pennsylvania, but with many others 
brought from Europe and the tropics. The "forest primeval" of 
native elms and oaks was undisturbed, and in this were no formal walks, 
but only winding, woodland roads, made by accident, rather than 
design. 

Penn, like most Englishmen, was fond of good horses, and kept a 
stable of blood animals. Hannah Penn, tending her baby, or embroid- 
ering a screen in her boudoir, sat among satin-covered chairs, damask 
curtains, and silken blankets. The furniture was solid oak, spider- 
legged and carved. Rare china and plate filled the dresser. To all, 
there was an open house at Pennsbury Manor; every one was welcome, 
regardless of his or her standing, for Penn could never see a distinction 
of persons, and showed as much courtesy in the society of Indians as he 
did in his converse with kings. One entertainment which he gave to 
the Indians upon the lawn was so extensive that a hundred roasted turkeys 
were prepared as a part of the bill of fare. At a time when wild turkeys 



158 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

frequently turned the scales at forty-six pounds, the banquet must have 
been ample, Penn accepted hospitality with as much grace as he gave 
it, and did not drop his courtly manners when he entered the wigwam of 
the Indian and ate hominy and acorns with him. There is a story 
told of his riding to the Derby meeting with little Rebecca Wood, a 
bare-legged country- girl, sitting behind him on his well-groomed horse 
— himself immaculate, no doubt, as to attire. Those two years spent 
at Pennsbur)^ Manor were, without question, the happiest of his life. 
" He was one of the first men in America to dimly perceive that an 
immorality lay in slavery. The truth did not come to him openly, for 
he and the rest of the Friends might well ask, "Did not the Bible 
sustain it?" Penn himself was an owner of slaves, but he felt in them, 
as in all the men he met, the common current of humanity, and in his 
will he gave freedom to his blacks. He tried to procure the passage of 
a law for the regulation of marriage of the negroes, but this law the 
assembly rejected. In 1701 he was obliged to leave the colony and 
return to England, and never again did he return to that peaceful spot 
upon the Delaware where the most placid years of his life had been 
spent. In England, he met with much trouble. At one time the 
charter of his province was threatened; again a lien was put on it 
through misrepresentation and fraud. He found himself heavily in debt, 
and was arrested and lodged in Fleet Prison for nine months. But 
even the evil reports which came from his beloved colony concerning 
the mismanagement of government were not so distressing to him as the 
folly and selfishness of his eldest son, William, whom he sent to 
America in hopes that he would find more wholesome companions than 
in profligate London. In Philadelphia, his debauchery and drunkenness 
were borne with much patience, because he was the son of their dear 
Governor, but he was finally arrested in a tavern brawl; the court 
brought an indictment against him. Governor Evans, who was then 
administering affairs in the province, was his boon friend, and had 
been in the same disgraceful brawl at which Penn was arrested, but 
neither Penn's name nor his powerful friends could move the Quakers 
when they had determined to do their duty by a sinner, and he left the 
province in disgrace, leaving a large company of disgusted creditors 
behind him. 

So dissatisfied did the people become with the Governor that they 
actual!)- defied his authority, and it was found judicious to dispose of 
liim. Charles Cookin succeeded to the governorship in 1709, and ruled 
quietly, but without much distinction. His troubles were of an abstract 



A GENTLEMAN. 



159 



kind, relating entirely to religious obligations, subtile enough to have 
satisfied Puritan Salem. Following him came Sir William Keith, a 
governor of more sense, though of little more force. Philadelphia had 
but little sympathy with the warlike actions of the other colonists; she 
was at peace with the Indians herself, and did not take a personal 
interest in those numerous expeditions against the French and Indians 
which disturbed the northern and southern colonies and steadily sapped 
their strenorth. 




WILLIAM PENN S RESIDENCE. 



As for Penn, he lived till 17 18, and passed the last six years of his 
life in tranquility at Ruscombe, his English estate. Slowly and steadily 
his disease destroyed his powerful mind and wrecked his active body. 
In 1732 Thomas Penn, his second son by his second marriage, moved 
to Philadelphia. He was never popular, but his elder brother, who 
came two years later, had something of the magnetism, vivacity and 
cordiality which distinguished his father. This was under Patrick 
Gordon's administration, and a time of great prosperity. Though the 
colony was the youngest on the continent, it had more white inhabitants 
than all Virginia, Mar\dand and the two Carolinas. Philadelphia was 



l6o THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

incomparably the finest city in America, and second in magnitude. Its 
trade was ver>' extensive and its manufacturing excellent. When 
Gordon died, in 1736, George Thomas followed him, and quietly ruled 
for nine years. 

Philadelphia, like Boston, had become the resort for enterprising 
boys. One of these boys was Benjamin Franklin, a rather comely printer's 
boy of seventeen, who quarreled with his elder brother, and made for 
the great "City of Brotherly Love." Ever}'one knows how he walked 
down the pavementt lonesome and hungry, eating his roll of bread; 
everyone knows of his unfortunate engagement with the printer, and 
how Governor Keith finally took him into his favor, or pretended to do 
so, and sent the eager lad to London. There Benjamin found out how 
little the Governor's promises were worth, and returned to Pennsylvania. 
After this he prospered, and in 1728 was one of the men who established 
the Pennsylvania Gazette^ a paper which lived for 120 years. He had 
previously written for the Nezv Ejigland Cnrrejit^ his brother's paper, 
and, indeed, it was on account of these articles on public affairs, that he 
had quarreled with his brother. Through his efforts, a library was 
started in Philadelphia in 1731. In 1741 he founded a philosophical 
society, and in 1749 a university in Pennsylvania. This was at a time of 
great national perplexity, which must be left for another chapter. 

Collectors of rare American literature cherish a few copies of "Poor 
Richard's Almanac," which are still extant. This he issued for twenty- 
five years. It was a collection of saws and sayings which have passed 
into the phraseology of our country until they have become classic. 
The annual sale of this almanac was about ten thousand copies. These 
were handed down from family to family by country people, until they 
were worn to shreds. Franklin wrote many papers on political, financial 
and scientific subjects, and even now and then dipped a lighter pen in 
ballad-writing. He was the first great scientist of America. To him 
belongs the honor of showing that lightning is electricity, and the 
invention of the lightning-rod is his. Indirectly, all of our great 
electrical experiments are traceable to him. 

FOR FURTHER RF.ADING: 
History — Sypher's "Philadelphia." 
Biography— Ellis' "Penn." 

Fiction— W. H. G. Kingston's "A True Hero." 
Poetry — J. G. Whittier's "Pennsylvania Pilgrim." 
Dra.ma— Schmidt-Eber's "William Penn." 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



.\, 



mnn^ 



THE RULE OF LOVELACE AT NEW YORK — THE DUTCH RETAKE THE 
CITY — IT AGAIN REVERTS TO THE ENGLISH BY PATENT- 
GOVERNOR ANDROS AND HIS UNPOPULAR RULE 

LEISLER ASSUMES CONTROL — TROUBLE 
WITH NEW FRANCE. 



V NETHERLAND was governed by the Eng- 
lish with such happy results that the Dutch had 
no objections to any change of governors which 
might be desired, and when Nicolls wished to 
return home, the people gave a cordial welcome 
to Colonel Francis Lovelace. His rule was quiet 
and popular, and entirely without difficulty at the capital, 
although upon the borders there were some disturbances. 
At one time the men of the Long Island towns refused 
to give any money for renewing the New York fortifica- 
tions. Lovelace ordered their votes to be publicly burned, 
and this gave rise to difficulties which continued for a 
long time. In the north, the French were disturbing, 
and at several times it was thought that war must be 
declared against Courcelles, the Governor of Canada. But, while the 
people of New York were still thinking about the subject, they were 
given matters of more serious interest to attend to. England was again 
at war with Holland, and from time to time rumors reached New York 
that a Dutch fleet was on its way northward from the West Indies to 
retake the harbor. Lovelace was absent for the time being, and paid 
no attention to the summons from his Lieutenant-Governor. 

On August 7, 1673, twenty-three Dutch ships, carrying sixteen 
hundred men, sailed into the bay of New York. The Dutch of the city 
rejoiced at the sight of their countrymen, and were not long in telling 
them the true condition of affairs. Such a force of men could well 




1 62 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

afford to laugh at the fret and fume of the village, in which men were 
running to and fro as if they had lost their heads. Drums were beaten 
about the streets. One nervous smith set to work on fire-locks, and the 
militia of the surrounding towns was called for. The Dutch commander 
quietly demanded surrender, and when the English came to treat with 
him and to beg for time, he quietly turned an hour-glass over and said 
that if the English did not surrender within half an hour he would 
open fire. He did as he said, and a few in the fort were killed, and 
others wounded. Six hundred Dutch landed on the banks of the 
Hudson. The fort surrendered, and the Dutch again took possession 
where Peter Stuyvesant had once stumped about in martial pride. 
The Dutch names were restored to cities, forts, rivers and ba}s. The 
Dutch burgomaster took the place of the English mayor. 

Antony Clove was chosen temporary Governor. Two ships-of-war 
were left him for protection, and the rest of the fleet sailed quietly 
away. New England was very much frightened when it heard of the 
success of the Dutch, but the Puritans were cautious, and though they 
took means for defending themselves, they did not venture to give the 
English of New York any assistance in ousting the Dutch. New York 
was easy to manage. So the citizens escaped plunder and outrage, they 
cared but little who their masters might be. The lawless class, which 
makes change of government in older cities so much to be dreaded, had 
no existence in the colonial towns. 

Over in Europe, events were taking a new direction. Peace was 
made between England and Holland, and though the States-general 
were really the winners of peace on their own continent, they never- 
theless gave up their possessions in the New World to the English. A 
patent of the New Netherland territory was given to the Duke of York 
in 1674. Major Edmund Andros was appointed by him to govern New 
York. The English names were restored, the officers reinstated, and all 
went on as it had under the rule of Nicolls and Lovelace. This was 
fifteen years before the time that Boston impeached the government of 
Andros and put him in prison. He thought but little of New York, 
which contained only six or seven thousand people, while New England 
had at least one hundred and twenty thousand — such a difference 
was there between the easy-going Dutch and the fiercely-determined 
Englishmen. Under English rule, a more rapid growth came to New 
York. There was not a little emigration from England. The industry 
of whaling, which brought so much wealth to Long Island, was taken 
up. All together there were twenty- four towns in the settlement and a 



THE DUTCHMAN'S FIRESIDE. 163 

remarkable increase of farms, on which not only wheat and tobacco 
was raised, but even horses. Fish, peltry and lumber were quite 
heavily exported. In a very short time the manufacture of flour 
became an important industry. 

When Andros chose to visit New York he was received with great 
pomp, which must have been a balm to his pride, hurt by the contempt 
with which the people of the southern colonies treated him. He went 
to Albany for the purpose of holding a council for the chiefs of the five 
nations, and succeeded in securing the promise of their friendship. 
Perhaps one reason that the New Yorkers had so little against Andros 
was that they saw so little of him, and that he thought the colony of 
too slight importance to greatly interfere with. 

In New York were two decided political parties — or religious parties, 
for at this time it was hard to separate the two. James, the Catholic 
King of England, had been obliged to flee to France. William and 
Mary, the Protestants, had been proclaimed the King and Queen of 
England. The thoughtful saw that there would be danger of a conflict 
between the Catholic and Protestant factions. When Andros was 
deposed by the Boston Committee of Safety, the government of New 
York was left in the hands of the Lieutenant-Governor, Nicholson, and 
of the council. The Dutch inhabitants of New York were in sympathy 
with William and Mary. The English of New York were very largely 
Catholics. In New York, no proclamation of William and Mary was 
made, and the chaplain at the fort continued to pray for the infant 
Prince of Wales, and that the dethroned James might be victorious over 
his enemies. In consequence, there was a steadily increasing discontent 
shown among the Dutch. Nicholson feared that the question was 
getting too troublesome for him, and resigned his position and sailed 
for England. The council was very much frightened, which, as it 
lacked both brains and courage, it might well be. No one was 
appointed to take command, and it came about quite naturally, that 
one of the captains of the militia, with more vigor than the rest, should 
assume the control of affairs. It is such times of need which make 
leaders. This man was Jacob Leisler, who was willing to do no end of 
work and face a great deal of danger. The council would do nothing 
although the disposition of the colony grew steadily worse. Leisler saw 
the full danger, and when it came his turn to guard the fort with his 
company, he called all the trained bands together and made them sign 
a declaration by which they said that they held the fort for William 
and Mar>', and would protect the Protestant religion. The council. 



164 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

frightened at the threatening look of things, dispersed, some of the 
members going to Connecticut and others to Albany. Leisler, a 
merchant by trade, and a man of little education, was left in the entire 
control of affairs. He called a convention, at which he was appointed 
captain of the fort, and the delegates made themselves into a committee 
of safety. At the ver\' outset Leisler was called upon to deal with some 
ver>' serious matters. 

King James had fled to France, and was the guest there of Louis 
XIV. Louis sent word to Frontenac, who was then Governor of 
Canada, that he should take it upon himself to search among the inhabi- 
tants of New York, and to send all French Protestants to France. The 
English Protestants were to be exported to New England, France or 
other places. The French Catholics were to be unmolested in their 
homes. Enough artisans and farmers to provide for the colony were 
to be left as slaves. Frontenac was not slow to obey the orders for 
invasion. 

FOR FTRTHER READING: 
Fiction — Noah Brooks' "In Leisler's Time." 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



Ilrnnlannt i\$ %}^\^^^ 



FRONTENAC'S ATTACK UPON NEW YORK — THE MASSACRE AT SCHENEC- 
TADY — NEW YORK IS FORTIFIED BY LEISLER — SLOUGHTER IS 
SENT TO SUPERSEDE HIM — LEISLER'S DEFENSE GETS 
HIM INTO TROUBLE — THE GOVERNOR'S 



DASTARDLY TAKING OFF. 



N February, 1669, Frontenac marched down to the 
frontier. He had three war parties of chosen 
men. One was to attack Albany, one New 
Hampshire and one Maine. A part of the men 
were Christian Iroquois. All three parties were 
led by LeMoyne, a young French gentleman of 
courage and spirit, to whose family France was greatly 
indebted for services in the New World. They crossed 
Lake Champlain on the ice. The Indians were afraid 
to attack Albany, and compelled the French to march 
upon Schenectady. They did so on the eighth of the 
month, late in the evening. The sun had rolled down 
like a red ball along the curve of the southern mountain 
— a peculiar effect, which, perhaps, cannot be seen any- 
where else in the world. About it, even the Indians had poetic 
legends. There had been a festival at the village, but it ended early, 
as all gayeties did in those days, and everyone was in bed sleeping as the 
double line of warriors approached the palisaded town. There were no 
sentinels at the gate; instead there stood two gigantic snow figures, put 
up there by the boys and girls in jocund mockery of danger. 
One whoop from the Indians, and the men fell to work. In two hours 
sixty persons were killed, and eighty or ninety taken prisoners. Some 
ran through the snow and storm to Albany, but they were few. The 
village was burned. The commander at Albany saw that there was 
immediate need of reinforcement. Albany was the only town in New 




1 66 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

York which had not admitted Leisler's government, but now she was 
forced to do so, and Leisler set to work to provide her with the men and 
supplies. Leisler asked all the other colonies to send delegates for the 
purpose of forming an expedition against the Frerich. Seven delegates 
attended the first colonial congress, which met on May i, 1690. All of 
these seven men will be mentioned again in history, so it is well to re- 
member their names. They were Stoughton, Sewall, Gold, Pitkin, 
Walley, Leisler and De la Noye. It was agreed that Leisler should 
appoint the commander; that New York should provide four hundred 
men, IMassachusetts one hundred and sixty, Connecticut one hundred 
and thirty-five, Plymouth sixty, and Maryland one hundred. 

Leisler hastened to rebuild the fortifications of New York. He 
captured some French cruisers at sea, which were of considerable force 
to use at his need. The year was a busy and stirring one. The times 
were turbulent. Leisler was a merchant by education, a leader and 
fighter by temperament, and kept everyone well at work. It goes with- 
out saying that he was heartily hated by the Catholics of the colony. 
They were not only the Catholics, but, as it chanced, the aristocrats of 
the place, for the Protestant movement was the movement of the 
people. When William found time to send over a royal Governor he 
found plenty of complaints awaiting his ear. This royal Governor was 
Colonel Henr}^ Sloughter. But it was not he who first appeared at New 
York, but Richard Ingoldsby, captain of a company of grenadiers, who 
arrived in New York a few weeks before his Governor, because 
Sloughter had chosen to go by way of the Bermudas. Ingoldsby seems 
to have had a very high idea of his own position, and on entering the 
port and finding that Leisler was in command of the fort, he ordered 
him to surrender. Leisler treated Ingoldsby politely, gave him quarters 
for his troops, but told him that he would not deliver the fort to any 
save he who held a warrant from the King. Ingoldsby had the 
impertinence to fire upon the fort for several hours. Leisler was not 
the man to let a fire go unreturned. A number of soldiers were killed. 

Several weeks passed, with Leisler still governing and Ingoldsby 
protesting, before Sloughter arrived. The friends of Leisler sa}- that he 
sent two gentlemen immediately to congratulate the Governor upon his 
arrival and to offer him the fort and government, but that the Governor 
would not listen to them, and threw them into jail. But Colonel 
Sloughter always said that he sent Ingoldsby to demand the fort, and 
that Leisler said he would own no Governor without orders from the 
King directed to him. However it may be, Ingoldsby marched into the 



FRONTENAC THE FIGHTER. 1 67 

fort. Leisler's men surrendered. Sloughter issued a warrant for the 
arrest of Leisler and his council. They were tried for treason and 
murder. Leisler and seven others were found guilty and sentenced to 
death, but all of them were reprieved until they should know what the 
King's pleasure was in the matter. 

The Catholics, so long irritated by Protestant rule, saw that their 
time for revenge had come. They used all the influence which the}- 
could bring to bear against Leisler. The Protestants were terrified, 
especially when they remembered the tragedy of Schenectady, and 
inferred from that what Jesuit rule might mean in New York. They 
sent in petitions for Leisler's pardon, while on the other hand the 
Catholics pressed petitions upon the Governor, begging for Leisler's 
execution. But Sloughter refused to sign Leisler's death-warrant. 
The assembly and various of the rich Catholics of New York prepared 
a feast, to which Sloughter was invited. Wine was plentiful, and 
under its influence the Governor was got to sign the death-warrant. 
The eight prisoners were executed before the Governor had recovered 
from the effects of his drinking. Leisler's young son had the question 
of his father's guilt argued before a committee of the House of Lords at 
London, three years later, and the judgment of the New York govern- 
ment was reversed. It was judged that Leisler was neither guilty of 
treason nor of murder. The family of Leisler was given its honorable 
reputation, and also a sum of money, in return for the charges made upon 
his private property during the time of his government. Sloughter 
only ruled over New York for four months. He died suddenly, and it is 
not unlikely that the friends of Leisler saw a special providence in this. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Broadhead and O'Callaghan's "New York." 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



I^B fui nl i\^ ]firali$. 



THE RULE OF GOVERNOR FLETCHER — FLETCHER SUCCEEDED BY THE 

EARL OF BELLOMONT — THE COMMISSION OF CAPTAIN KIDD, 

AND HOW IT WAS CARRIED OUT — LORD CORNBURY 

BECOMES GOVERNOR — THE EXPEDITIONS 

AGAINST PORT ROYAL AND 

QUEBEC. 



OR a short time Captain Ingoldsby attended to 
the duties of governorship, but was relieved 
by Benjamin Fletcher, Governor for the King, 
His commission gave him command of the 
militia of the New England colonies as well as 
his own. It was thought necessar}- for the 
safety of the colonies to have a general commander to 
protect them from the Indians. The colonies believed 
themselves to be independent, and certainly were 
under governors of their own, if one could tell any- 
thing by their charters. Connecticut sent a repre- 
sentative to England to complain of the violation of 
their rights under the charter. Rhode Island also 
sent an agent to protest to the King. While these 
men were in England, Fletcher came to Hartford and ordered the 
militia under arms. Governor Treat refused to let Fletcher assume 
command of his troops, but the militia was permitted to muster at Hart- 
ford. Fletcher ordered his commission and instructions to be read to 
the troops. In command at the front was Captain Wads worth, and as 
soon as the reading began he cried, "Beat the drums ! " and all the 
sturdy Puritan drummers fell to raising such a noise that the voice of 
the reader was entirely drowned. The more the Governor shouted for 
silence the louder the hot-headed Wadsworth shouted for them to drum, 
until finally the Governor had to yield, leaving Treat in command. 




THE PEST OF THE PIRATES. 1 69 

Fletcher sold licenses to privateers and pirates, and under his rule New 
York and the surrounding islands gained the reputation of being a nest 
of pirates. 

In the north, Frontenac was still active. The Mohawks had been 
won to the side of the English, and three years after the massacre of 
Schenectady the French took three of the Mohawk towns. Major 
Schuyler, of Albany, was sent hurriedly after the French. In a few 
days he had overtaken them. They had three engagements, in which 
the French were repulsed each time. Then came a terrible fall of snow, 
and, hungry and cold, the troops on both sides were forced to retire to 
their rude fortifications. On both sides were Indian allies. The Indians 
had a dislike for the Christian mode of warfare, and always shrank 
from open attack. For this reason they delayed the action constantly, 
first the French, then the English allies refusing to move. It was on 
this account that the French finally escaped by the floating ice on the 
Hudson, and got out of Schuyler's reach, Frontenac' s party, suffering 
for food, straggled back in small parties to Canada. 

Fletcher had shown such greed and dishonesty in his administration 
that he was deposed from office, and the Earl of Bellomont put in his 
place. It was found by this time that the southern colonies could not be 
dealt with easily, and that their rights could not be disposed of without 
protest. The experiment which had failed with Fletcher was not tried 
with Bellomont. He was appointed Governor of New York and Massa- 
chusetts, but only Captain-General over the military forces of 
Connecticut, Rhode Island and the Jerseys. One of the first things 
which Bellomont did was to get from the New York assembly an 
acknowledgment of the error under which Leisler was condemned, 
and he had his body taken up from the private ground and reburied 
with public state in the Dutch church. His vigorous action gave 
strength to the Protestant part}- and the promise of a fair and deter- 
mined administration. 

Honest commerce had been almost choked under Fletcher's rule, 
and it was Bellomont' s ambition to get rid of that class of French 
seamen who, under the excuse of war commissions, seized upon every 
ship whose cargo tempted them. These rovers made a journey upon 
the sea a thing of risk and terror to peaceable people. One of this 
class was Captain Kidd. This valorous but unfortunate personage, 
about whom so much has been written and told, was the friend of great 
men. One of Bellomont' s methods for getting rid of the pirates was to 
send out a ship, at the expense of a joint stock company, for the purpose 



I JO THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

of capturing pirate vessels. A number of great noblemen, and the 
King himself, were to receive parts of the profits of the adventure. 
Bellomont and his friends provided a ship for Kidd's use, paying four- 
fifths of the cost. The rest was paid by Kidd. The crew was not to 
take more than one-fourth of the prizes captured. If nothing was 
taken, Kidd was to return the cost of the galley before March i, 1697. 
Kidd's previous reputation had not been particularly bad. He was a 
sea rover, and even then was known as a man of unusual adventure and 
daring. For this very reason he was thought a fit commander for the 
one hundred and fifty lawless men put under his charge. 

At that time Madagascar was a great resort for pirates. There they 
lived in barbaric splendor, in a manner not unsuggestive of the marvels 
of Monte Cristo. The first time Kidd was heard of he was living 
among these sumptuous outlaws. It seems that he had been unable to 
capture any of the pirates whom he had been sent out for, and had gone 
to Madagascar in the hope that he might fall in with some better luck. 
After a time he took to the sea again, and went as far as India, but 
meeting none of the vessels which he was authorized to overhaul, he 
finally preyed upon merchant vessels for his own benefit. For several 
years he followed this adventurous life, and in 1699 sailed uncon- 
cernedly into the New York harbor. Bellomont did not arrest him, 
because Kidd assured him that he could prove his innocence of the 
crimes of which he was accused, and he was allowed to go to Boston. 
There, however, he was arrested. He was thrown into jail, and tried 
to get out by telling of forty thousand pounds of treasure which was 
hidden in the West Indies, and which would be lost unless he himself 
went for it. Kidd was sent to England, where he lay in prison for a 
year. The Tories were detennined that he^ should be convicted, since 
he had been the friend of the famous Whigs, and of Bellomont, the 
Governor. He was tried and convicted of the murder of a gunner 
whom he had accidentally killed in a brawl. And so Captain Kidd, the 
daring rover, was hanged. He was more famous than many better 
men, and it will be long before the youths of this country and England 
liave ceased to feel interested in his daring exploits. 

When Lord Bellomont died, in 1701, Lord Cornbury, a cousin of 
Oueen Anne, who, a year later, came to the throne, was appointed 
Governor. Truth to tell, it was only by quitting the country that he 
could escape being imprisoned for debt. He was a very worthless man, 
given up to drink and debauchery of all kinds, and the only interest 
that he took in his new office came from the hope that he might rapidly 



THE PEST OF THE PIRATES. 171 

enrich himself. This year (1702) a dreadful yellow fever epidemic 
broke out in New York, which carried off more than five hundred 
within ten weeks. Cornbury was so unscrupulous that he did not 
even take pains to conceal his greed. He gathered large sums of money 
for the purpose of building a fortification at the Narrows, and then 
calmly kept the money for his own use. After this the assembly 
insisted upon giving all the money for public purposes into the hands of 
a treasurer of their own. The Governor immediately appealed to the 
crown, protesting against the insult to himself, but the crown refused to 
take his part. He was a fierce religionist, for all of his bad ways, and 
showed as great a lack of scruple in the matters relating to the church 
as in other affairs. One story which is told of him illustrates clearly 
the temper of the man. When the yellow fever was so bad in New 
York, he went to a town upon Long Island until it should be over. 
The Presbyterian minister there had the best house in town, and he 
courteously yielded this to the Governor to use during his stay. When 
the Governor no longer needed it he handed it over to a few represent- 
atives of the Established Church of England, who lived at the place, 
and said that the ground attached could be leased for the support of 
their church. He persecuted the Presbyterians throughout the colony, 
and would not allow a school teacher or clergyman to teach or preach 
except by a special license. 

Down in Massachusetts the royal Governor, Dudley, was making 
matters disagreeable, and continually fighting the charter governments. 
But there was a strong element in the colonies now which could not 
easily be crushed. The popular party had some brilliant men in it who 
were neither afraid to speak nor to suffer, and the arrogant governors 
knew they could go but so far. Ever>'thing which Cornbury did was 
disagreeable to the simple and industrious colonists. For one thing, he 
dressed like a woman, in great splendor, saying that it was proper that 
he should be so clothed to more fittingly represent his sovereign 
mistress, the Queen. He insulted the Quakers, who were no longer the 
wild and ill-advised creatures who had shocked the Boston meetings, 
but grave and dignified citizens. The people appealed to the Queen 
for protection, and Cornbury was recalled. He was arrested for debt 
and thrown in jail, where he remained until he became Earl of 
Clarendon, through the death of his father. Lord Lovelace was 
appointed Governor, but died in a short time. At this time New York 
was intending to send an expedition against Canada, and as the treasury 
was empty, issued bills of credit, the first ever put out by New York. 



172 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

But the English fleet was routed, and it was necessary to think of other 
means for subduing the French province. 

At this time the five nations were the friends of the English, and it 
was thought best to take advantage of their fickle friendship. Schuyler, 
with five Indian chiefs, was sent to England to beg for help in the 
conquest of the French. He was given ships and men for an expedi- 
tion, and joined with the New England men in the taking of Port 
Royal. Robert Hunter had succeeded Lord Lovelace as Governor of 
New York. He was in favor of pushing the war against the French. 
The New England people had received most of the credit of the capture 
of Port Royal, and the New Yorkers were anxious to do something as 
brilliant. The fleet was a large one. There were sixteen men-of-war 
and twenty transports, which started in the summer of 171 1, under Sir 
Hovenden Walker, for the attack upon Quebec. Altogether there were 
seven thousand men. But the fleet had only sailed ten leagues up the 
St. Lawrence, when ten or eleven of the ships drifted upon the rocks, 
and one thousand men were drowned. Meanwhile, a detachment had 
marched from Albany to attack Montreal. Hearing of the disaster to 
the ships, those troops fell back. England won nothing, but the 
French were much alarmed. 

In 171 9 Hunter retired, and Burnet took his place. He was 
devoted to the interests of the people, but was not popular. He con- 
ceived a new plan for the conquest of the French. Most of the 
Canadian supplies were got from Albany, and he proposed to prohibit 
all trade between his own province and Canada, but this did not please 
the tradesmen, although it did the assembly. Few merchants care 
enough for national independence to see their trade decrease. The 
trade with Canada was carried on as if the Governor had not prohibited 
it. In the face of this opposition the Governor was not able to keep his 
temper, and did some ill-advised things. In 1727 he was removed and 
transferred to Massachusetts Bay. He was fonder of writing works on 
the Bible than governing, perhaps, and would no doubt have succeeded 
better as a private citizen than as a leader of men. The next Governor 
died shortly after his arrival, and Rip Van Dam, the eldest member of 
the council, acted as Governor until Colonel Cosby arrived, in 1732, to 
take the head of the colony. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Parknian's "Fronteiiac." 
Fiction— J. H. lugraham's "Captain Kyd." 




SCKXli ON THK ST. LAWRENCE RIVER. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 



>|a !f 0J]^ Tni^Hjar^. 



THE FRENCH AND THE DISCOVERIES IN THE NORTHWEST — FATHERS 
JOLIET AND MARQUETTE DISCOVER THE SOURCE OF THE MIS- 
SISSIPPI AND SAIL DOWN THE RIVER — DEATH OF MAR- 
QUETTE — THE EXPEDITION OF LASALLE AND HENNE- 
PIN — LOUISIANA DISCOVERED AND NAMED, 



HE English treated with the Indians, the Dutch 
traded with them, and the French lived with 
them. More imaginative than the English or 
the Dutch, they saw at once the picturesqueness 
of savage life, and appreciated the wild delights 
of adventure and discovery. Champlain had ar- 
rived in Quebec on July 3, 1608. This was only a year 
after the settlement in Jamestown. Four years later he 
discovered Lake Ontario and Lake Nipissing. It was 
impossible to content that gallant explorer while he 
lived. Ever restless, he went from one point to another 
of the great unknown continent which stretched west- 
ward, and about which the English seemed to have had 
comparatively little curiosity. There grew up in Quebec 
a race of men half Indian in habit, who preferred 
the wilderness to civilization. They were absolutely fearless, good 
fighters, capable of endurance, fleet of foot, excellent hunters, and sin- 
cere Catholics. They carried the cross of Christ in one hand and their 
muskets in the other, so to speak. The jaunty songs of these 
voyageurs made the wilderness ring. Jean Nicollet was one of these 
men, who went as far west as what we know as Wisconsin. 

In the year 1640 the Fathers Chaumonot and Brebceuf coasted 
along the northern shore of the State of Ohio, through the fair chain 
of waters by Detroit, and up the eastern shores of Michigan as far as 
the Straits of Macinac. Fourteen years later, two young traders went 




174 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

far west upon Lake Superior, and heard there of the great tribe of 
Sioux. When these traders returned to Montreal, in 1660, with six- 
teen canoes packed with furs, they excited great interest in the city, 
and quickened the love of adventure which already existed among 
the Frenchmen. The French had had many unhappy experiences with 
the Indians. The latter could not understand the mysticism of the 
Frenchman's religion; in his burning tapers, his altars, robes and 
crucifix, they saw the symbols of superstition, and thought the French- 
men must be the familiars of evil spirits. The French who had 
ventured to settle near Onondaga for the purpose of converting the 
Indians there, had been glad to escape with their lives. Father Jogues 
had been treacherously murdered, in 1646, by the Mohawks, in the 
Mohawk valley, simply because of the fear which his missal and altar 
produced. But undismayed by such catastrophes the zealous Jesuits 
continued to establish new missions. 

In the summer of 1660 Father Mesnard founded a mission on 
a point of the southern shore of Lake Superior, known then and now 
as Chagwamegan. He lost his life in some mysterious way, and in 
1665 Father Allouez took up the mission there, preaching in the Algon- 
quin language to twelve or fifteen different tribes. Even the Sioux 
heard of him, and it was through them that he heard first of the Mis- 
sissippi. In 1669 Father Aloney, with Father Dablon, went as far as 
the Fox river, learning from the Indians not a little about the 
geography of the country. 

But the more thorough enterprise began when Jean Talon was 
appointed overseer of the trade of Canada. He called a council of 
Indians at the fort of Lake Superior, in 1671. An adventurer who 
knew the language and customs of the Indians was there, and repre- 
sentatives of Louis XIV. Chiefs of tribes from Hudson Bay and the 
head of Lake Superior and Lake Michigan were there. A cross was 
erected to which the arms of France was fastened, and possession was 
taken in the name of the French crown, and the chiefs promised to be 
loyal to the great King of France. Under this guarantee of friendship, 
Louis Joliet and Father Marquette started on an expedition in 1673. 
They discovered the source of the ^lississippi, and went as far south as 
the mouth of the Arkansas. Father Marquette was a delightful writer, 
and left an account of his travels, full of romance and piety. The 
Indians everywhere were friendly, and the travelers even saw at one 
village a cross erected and adorned, which showed that the religion of 
the Jesuits was creeping among the tribes. With two Indian guides, 



THE HOLY VOYAGEURS. 1 75 

they were shown the passage from the Fox to the Wisconsin river, and 
from the St. Lawrence to the Mississippi river. Down this wild river, 
many hundred leagues from their own countrymen, the two peaceful 
but courageous Frenchmen floated, seeing little life besides great herds 
of buffaloes. They slept in their canoes at night for fear of being sur- 
prised. It was a good many days before they found any traces of men. 
Following up a trail which they had discovered, they came upon a party 
of Illinois Indians. These Indians were more demonstrative than those 
of the east. They indulged more in ceremonials, and had a more com- 
plex religion, at least so one must believe from the accounts left of 
them, though the difference may have lain largely in the fact that the 
Frenchmen were appreciative. 

The chief of the Illinois village came forth from his wigwam, 
naked, to welcome Joliet and Marquette, raising his hands to the sun. 
About him danced other braves, with the red calumet, or pipe of peace, 
in their hands. They were invited to visit the Indian village, where 
they were given a feast and led in a sort of triumphal procession to see 
the town. The people went with them to their canoes, with ever>- 
expression of pleasure and courtesy which they could give. 

Soon after this the explorers saw the painted rocks, so famous after- 
ward. These were rocks on which the Indians had painted, in a way 
which Marquette protested to be as good as anything that could be done 
in France. They were ruthlessly destroyed by quarrying, in the present 
century. They then struck the great, muddy flow of the Missouri, 
staining the blue Mississippi with its repulsive streak. Marquette 
hoped that he might reach the Gulf of California, of which the Spaniards 
had given such glowing accounts. Marquette saw iron mines up the 
Ohio river near its meeting with the Mississippi, which showed that the 
French traders had already been as far as that point. They met with 
Indians who had guns, powder, knives, hatchets and cloth, which they 
had got from the Europeans on the eastern coast. Again and again the 
calumet saved Marquette and his friend from attack by the Indians, and 
at length, fearing that they might fall into the hands of the Spaniards, 
they turned northward again. 

When they reached the Illinois river they followed the course of 
that stream and made a portage into Lake Michigan. "We have seen 
nothing equal to this river for the goodness of the land, ' ' said Marquette. 
"The prairies, wood, cattle, deer, goats, bustards, swans, ducks, paro- 
quets, and even beaver, abound here. There are many little lakes and 
little rivers. ' ' They had started in June, and by September were back 



1/6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

to the French mission at Green Bay. Marquette lived for two \ears 
among the Miami Indians. His death is very touching. The gentle 
old man was making his way in his canoe to Macinac, in 1675, and 
stopped on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan to raise an altar and 
celebrate the mass. He seemed unaccountably sad, and asked his 
companions to leave him alone a little while. They did so, and when 
they came to him, found him dead. 

When Joliet reached Montreal with his story of the expedition, 
Robert Cavalier de La Salle, a Norman gentleman who had established 
a trading post at Lachine, not far from Montreal, felt that the time for 
an expedition had come. Frontenac gave La Salle letters of introduction 
at court, and he succeeded in getting all he asked for. With thirty 
men, plenty of stores and tools, he marched to Lake Ontario, made the 
portage by Niagara Falls to Lake Erie, and at Port Frontenac built a 
ship of forty-five tons. He named it the Griffin. She was armed with 
seven cannons, and well built, considering the disadvantages of her 
construction. She sailed westward in 1679, reaching the settlement of 
Green Bay in September. The Griffin was freighted with fur, and 
La Salle, with some of his men, walked to St. Joseph, at the head of 
Lake Michigan, nearly opposite the river Chicago. Here he waited for 
the Griffin^ but it never appeared. Depressed, but determined, he 
pushed westward, and established in the present La Salle county, in 
Illinois, Fort Creve-Coeur. La Salle sent Father Hennepin to trace 
the Illinois to the mouth, which he did, and then went up the Missis- 
sippi as far as the falls of St. Antony. He was taken prisoner by the 
Sioux. They allowed him to return to his own country, with the 
promise that he would visit them the next year. 

La Salle decided to return to Niagara, and left Henri de Tonty in 
charge at Creve-Cosur. The Iroquois Indians drove Tonty and his men 
from the fort, and as he hurried down the west side of Lake Michigan, 
La Salle came up the east side with reinforcements. Bitterly dis- 
appointed at finding the fort deserted. La Salle returned to Montreal, 
where he succeeded in making arrangements with his creditors — for the 
loss of the Griffin had seriously embarassed him — for another expedition. 
La Salle sailed in 1681, with twenty-three Frenchmen and eighteen 
Indians. The Indians took with them ten of their wives. With the 
party were the Chevalier Henri de Tonty, Father Zenobe, and Dautray, 
the son of the Procureur General of Quebec. These crossed the lake to 
the Chicago river, and it may interest the thousands who daily pass 
over that torpid and ill-smelling stream to know that they named it the 



THE HOLY VOYAGEURS. 1 77 

"Divine River. " They stopped for a time upon the present site of 
Chicago, and then went on to the mouth of the Illinois. La Salle went 
on down the river as fast as the ice would permit him. On each side 
lay the shores, snow-clad; the trees glittering through the long, quiet 
nights with fairy frost. The stillness was absolute. It was not until 
they had sailed forty-five leagues that they heard the sounds of men. 
ha Salle knew they had been seen by the savages, and thought it best 
to build a fort. He sent the calumet of peace to the Indian chiefs, and 
established pleasant relations immediately. He speaks particularly of 
the gayety of these southern Indians as compared with the severe and 
sombre natives of the north. He left a cross there with St. Louis' 
arms, and upon his return found that the Indians had surrounded it 
with a palisade that it might not be harmed. Next he passed the 
village of the Arkansas, where a superior people lived, with well-built 
houses, having roofs of canes, fixed so as to form a dome. They were 
ornamented with barbaric but effective paintings. They had furniture, 
also, and understood the making of cloth. Next they came across the 
Natchez Indians, and passing them, pushed on in the hope of finding the 
sea. At last the water of the river tasted salt. A little further on and 
it became saltier. A little further yet and they looked upon the sea. 
Planting the cross, with the arms of France, they took possession of the 
mouth of the Mississippi in the name of King Louis. The expedition 
made its way back slowly. La Salle suffering from severe illness. The 
report of his great discovery was sent to France, and finally La Salle 
himself crossed to confer with King Louis. He was given power for 
the colonization of Louisiana. Louisiana, as La Salle named the 
territor}' for the King, included the present State of Louisiana and all 
the territory north of the line of Texas and west of the ]\Iississippi to 
the Rocky IMountains. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Parkman's "France and England in North America." 
"La Salle's Discoverj' of the Great West." 



CHAPTER XXXV. 



>}p il^attalbr Jfa ^n\h. 



LA SALLE LANDS ON THE SHORE OF TEXAS — HE IS MURDERED — THE HUT 

IN THE WILDERNESS — THE EXPEDITION OF d' IBERVILLE — THE 

SETTLEMENT OF NEW ORLEANS, AND THE MISSISSIPPI 

— SCHEME OF JOHN LAW — THE MASSACRE OF 

CHOPART — BIENVILLE'S ILL-FATED 

EXPEDITION AGAINST THE 

CHICK AS AWS. 



■"a SALLE set sail from France on the 24th of July, 
1684, with four vessels and a fine equipment, but 
one accident after another delayed him, and it was 
almost a year before he neared the mouth of the 
]\Iississippi. Through a miscalculation he passed 
beyond the mouth of the river and landed farther 
west. La Salle was sure that a mistake had been 
made, but could not induce the captain of the fleet to 
return, and had no choice but to land his goods where 
he was. By this accident Texas was first of the Gulf 
States, after Florida, to be settled by Europeans. The 
ship master cruelly deserted La Salle, and returning to 
France, abused the ear of the King with stories about 
the great discoverer, which so injured him in the esteem 
of the court that no relief was sent to him — relief which 
he was in great need of Fortunately the Indians were gentle and 
hospitable, and helped to supply the wretched little colony with food. 
La Salle spent his time in unavailing searches for the Mississippi, which 
came to seem to him at last like some mythical stream, ha\-ing no 
existence. 

It was on one of these journeys that the gallant and unfortunate 
explorer met his death. He left the post in charge of twent\- of his 




THE CHEVALIER LA SALLE. 1 79 

colonists, and taking as many more with him, started out with no 
guide but a compass and no protection from savages, except that fur- 
nished by a few arms and his conciliatory policy. They had been out 
about three months, when La Salle sent out a party in search of some 
supplies which had been left upon a previous journey. This party 
killed two buffaloes and sent back for horses to bring the meat to camp. 

La Salle's young nephew, Morangetand, and two others, went with 
the horses. Morangetand flew into a passion because the hunters had 
set apart a portion of the meat for themselves. This the law of hunting 
clearly entitled them to, but Morangetand was a hot-headed young 
fellow, who had the pride of La Salle without his gentleness. 

The hunters laid a plot for the killing of Morangetand and two 
faithful servants who were with him. This they did at night while the 
men were sleeping. The hunters lacked the courage to meet La Salle, 
and lingered so long that the Chevalier grew anxious, and calling a 
friar for company, walked in search of them. There is a tradition that 
as he went a great sadness came over him. He talked of his successes 
as if they were things of the past, and all the philosophy of the gentle 
friar was not able to arouse him from this melancholy mood. As he 
neared the place where he knew the hunters to be, he fired his pistol to 
let them know of his approach, and they crossed the river to meet him. 
He asked where his nephew was, and was answered insolently. La Salle 
rebuked him, and the hunter fired, shooting him through the brain. 
He was only forty-six years old, and in all his able life was never more 
full of vigor and enterprise. Had he lived, the history of the Missis- 
sippi valley would have been very different. 

There was a quarrel among the murderers, in which the man who 
fired the fatal shot was himself killed. The rest of the colony were 
eager to get out of the wilderness as soon as they could. The good 
friar and four ^others decided to push toward Canada, and mounting their 
horses, bade their friends farewell. What became of those who 
remained at the colony is not known. The friar and his friends, jour- 
neying northward, came suddenly upon a cottage built in the French 
style. Near it stood a cross. The bewildering effect of such a sight in 
the heart of the wilderness can be imagined. It was the dwelling of 
two of Henri de Tonty's men, Charpentier and De Launay, who had 
been left on the banks of the Mississippi two years before. Here one 
of the friar's friends remained. These three Frenchmen were the only 
living souls left to mark the adventures of the French in the valley of 
the Mississippi — Louisiana, the French called it. 



l80 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

It was ten years after La Salle's death before France made 
any strong effort to renew the colonization of the Mississippi valley. 
Sieur Lemoyne d' Iberville, son of the distinguished Baron Longneuil, 
of Canada, was then given the command of an expedition fitted out by 
the King for the planting of a colony. Baron Longpjeuil had eleven 
sons, not to mention numerous young kinsmen, all of whom were men 
of spirit. Many of them were concerned in the fierce fights of the French 
and English at the north. D' Iberville had two frigates under his 
charge when he left France, and the three vessels joined him at Saint 
Domingo. This was in 1699. With him was that same friar who was 
the friend of La Salle in that ill-fated colony, St. Louis. He it 
was who pointed out to d'ibervdile the strong, turbid flow of the 
Mississippi, staining the blue gulf. Up the river they found Indians 
who had cloaks which La Salle had given them, and a breviary which 
the friar had left in 1682. The boats were moved from Biloxi Island 
to the Mobile Bay, on d' Iberville's first journey. The second time he 
came, he found a point on the Mississippi river about thirty-eight miles 
below the present city of New Orleans. This settlement, established in 
1 700, was the first really made in Louisiana, as we know the State now. 
That on the Mobile Bay was abandoned in a short time and re-estab- 
lished on the Mobile river. By this time communication was established 
between Canada and the settlements of Louisiana, by way of the great 
river, Lake Erie, and the Miami Portage. About this time an English- 
man by the name of Coxe sent out an expedition to explore and take 
possession of the Mississippi, under a charter given to Coxe by Charles 
II for the territory west of Florida. This expedition was met by one 
of the Frenchmen, Bienville, the brother of d' Iberville, and when 
inquiry was made concerning the situation of the INIississippi, Bien- 
ville, with a Frenchman's calm and polite exterior, told him that it was 
farther west. The Englishman turned into that dismal country where 
La Salle had wandered so long. He who rides down the Mississippi 
may still know the place where the Englishmen went into the wilder- 
ness, by the name of "English Turn." Fortunately for the little 
French colony, Spain and France were in alliance at this period, and 
the Spanish governors of Mexico and Florida were willing to give such 
help as they could. The King granted the whole territory to Antoine 
Crozat. Crozat appointed as his Governor, Cadillac, a soldier, who came 
to the colony in May, 17 13. It was but natiiral that Bienville, who 
had done so much practical work there — for his brother, d' Iberville, was 
now dead — should resent the coming of the new oflScials. Their 



THE CHEVALIER LA SALLE. I Si 

quarrels were the beginning of parties, which lasted for many years. 
Cadillac was a determined explorer, and sent an expedition into 
Texas which had much to do with the early history of that State. 
When he returned to France, in two years from the time of his coming, 
M. de L'Epiany was appointed Governor in his stead. But Louisiana 
was to have a success which no half-way colonial enthusiasm could 
make. With the death of Louis the Magnificent, in 17 15, began the 
reign of the Regent, Duke of Orleans, and with him there came into 
power in France a company of determined financiers, unscrupulous 
men, who tried to avert the bankruptcy of the kingdom. Foremost 
among these men was John Law, an Englishman, who was already 
noted for daring business schemes, and who had laid out a plan for a 
national bank which was far superior to anything of that day. France 
was terribly in debt, and John Law proposed a bank discount which was 
to issue bills redeemable in coin on merchants' notes. The Duke of 
Orleans was the patron of this bank. Law asked and obtained Crozat's 
privileges to the Mississippi trade, and formed a company which united 
the commerce of Louisiana and the fur trade of Canada. This was 
called the Western Company, and grants were given to it for twenty-five 
years. It had a nominal capital of 100,000,000 livres — an actual capi- 
tal of about 40,000,000 livres. Unsubstantial as the actual value of this 
property was, and as Louis must have known it to have been, it never- 
theless satisfied the depressed merchants of France. Law worked hard ; 
he had troops sent over as well as vessels of colonists. Bienville was 
once more made Governor-General of Louisiana. He selected New 
Orleans for the capital, and in February, 17 18, left fifty persons to 
secure the loan and begin the building of houses. Vessels brought 
large parties of colonists here the following years. 

John Law's scheme seemed to succeed, and in 1 719 he so gained the 
confidence of merchants, that he was able to join with the East India 
Company of France. The name of the corporation was changed to the 
Indian Company. New shares were now issued at a par of 500 livres, 
and no one was allowed to take any new shares who had not four old 
ones to show. For the first time for many years France found herself 
in a seemingly prosperous condition. John Law's scheme did not show 
its hollowness, until at length the actual value of the bonds were put to 
test. The Indian Company would not even accept their own shares as 
collateral for the purchase of new shares. It goes without saying that 
no one else would accept them in exchange for things of actual value. 
All that vast stretch of land by the Mississippi, valuable enough to 



1 82 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

form the basis of a nation, had no vahie then, lying nncultivated and 
uninhabited. Among other serious mistakes, France had made that of 
sending adventurers and fortune-hunters, instead of industrious peasants, 
to Ivouisiana. 

The great bubble burst in 1770. Law was protected from the 
consequences of his fatal scheme by becoming a Roman Catholic and 
securing an appointment as minister. The valley of the Mississippi 
ceased to be of great commercial interest to France, and was left to the 
quiet attendance of the Jesuit missionaries; John Law's scheme had 
brought to Louisiana several hundred colonists and had not been so 
unfortunate an affair as might been expected from its magnitude and its 
false basis. The Gennans whom Law had brought over had been 
deserted by him, but their habits of hard work and their love of nature 
had been their presentation. There still exist above New Orleans, on 
the German coast, luxurious farms and homes, built by these exiles and 
sustained by their descendants. 

The French settlement at Natchez was the most prosperous of the 
trading posts upon the river. The Natchez Indians were a very inter- 
esting tribe, not lacking in some good form of government. Like all 
of the rest of the southern Indians, they had imagination and warmth 
of temperament. They were sun-worshipers. Their chief was called 
Brother of the Sun. The temple in which he worshiped was built in 
the shape of a dome, with walls of smooth clay. Three wooden eagles, 
one red, another white, and the third yellow, perched above it. Mats 
of braided straw were placed upon the top to furnish protection from 
the rain. Around it was a palisade, in which were placed the skulls 
the Natchez had brought back from battle. The palace of the chief 
was not unlike the temple. It was built upon an artificial hill, so that 
the first rays of the sun might awaken the chief, for the door fronted 
the east. With many wild howls to the sun, he lighted his calumet 
and devoted his first puffs to his mighty kinsman. He then directed 
his course through the heavens by moving his hands from the east to 
the west. The royal descent was traced through the female line. The 
royal princesses were allowed to marr} none but men of low family. It 
was their sons who succeeded to the throne, and as soon as an heir 
presumptive was born, a number of infants nearest his age were selected 
to be his guard. All through his life he was taken care of by these 
servants, who hunted for him and farmed for him, and when he died, 
permitted themselves to be strangled, that they might continue to serve 
him in another world. All this is described by Charlevoix, who left 



THE CHEVALIER LA SALLE. 1 83 

Canada in 1720 to visit the Canadian missions, and stopped at Kask- 
askia, in the present State of Illinois, the oldest settlement in that 
State. Going down the river in a canoe made from a large walnut 
tree, he visited the Gennan coast. New Orleans and Natchez. Charlevoix 
says that the Natchez Indians had decreased rapidly in number, and 
that in six years they had lost two thousand fighting men. 

The commander of the fort at Natchez, in 1729, was Chopart, a man 
both narrow and selfish. He sent to the Brother of the Sun and told 
him that the French wished the Natchez to leave the site of their beau- 
tiful village and give it up to the French. This the Natchez promptly 
refused to do. Chopart insisjied that they must move away, within two 
months. Up to this time the Natchez had been friendly to the French, 
but they now made up their minds that they must get rid of them. 
They got the Choctaws to join in the plan, and little bunches of sticks 
were exchanged between the chiefs to indicate the number of days 
before that selected for the massacre, but unfortunately the little son of 
the Natchez chief saw his father burning the sticks in the temple, and after 
his father had left, burned two more which he added to the pack. This, 
of course, misled the Choctaw chief When the day appointed by the 
Natchez came, they gave a dinner to Chopart. He ate and drank with 
them till 3 o'clock in the morning, and then returned to his home. In 
a little while the Brother of the Sun came out with his warriors, who 
bore the calumet high on a stick. They went to Chopart' s house 
pretending they had come to bring him the tribute which he had told 
them he would exact if they did not move from the village in two 
months. Chopart, without dressing, opened the door and asked them 
to enter. At that time, in every house in the settlement were one or 
more Indians. Most of the chief's warriors went to the river, where a 
well-laden galley had just come from New Orleans. Ever>' Indian 
picked out a man among those working on the galley, and firing, killed 
him. This was the signal for a general slaughter. In every house the 
Indians fell upon the settlers. Only one soldier escaped from the 
garrison. Some of the women were killed, but most of them were 
taken to be held as slaves. Two hundred Frenchmen were killed 
within an hour's time, Chopart among them. 

Two da^-s later the Choctaws, down by New Orleans, sent a delega- 
tion to the Brother of the Sun, and learned that the Natchez had already 
moved against the French, The Choctaws, not understanding the 
reason of the mistake in the day of the attack, turned all of their anger 
against the Natchez. Fugitives from the massacre began to arrive from 



184 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

New Orleans and Perier. The commander of the fort there formed an 
ann\, in which the Choctaws joined, to move against the Natchez 
Indians. The Natchez Indians surrendered, leaving their town and 
moving up the Red river. The next summer Perier moved after them 
ao-ain. Once more thev surrendered to him, and two hundred of them 
were sold as slaves to Saint Domingo. Three hundred escaped, and 
their descendants are living at this time upon the farms in the valleys 
of the Ouachita river. 

The Western Company, hearing of the difficulties, represented its 
losses to the King, and he assumed the responsibility of it by making it 
a royal province. Bienville, who had b^en in France for some time, 
was again sent over as Governor-General in 1736. The first thing he 
did was to prepare an expedition to the renmant of the Natchez Indians. 
The Chickasaws at that time were allies of the Indian colony, and sure 
of their strength, refused to yield up the Natchez Indians, who were 
given to them for protection. Bienville sent word to the fort at 
Kaskaskia to meet him with as many men as he could muster on the 
loth of May, in the Chickasaw country, so Bienville himself led out the 
army from New Orleans to Mobile, on sixty small craft. He was met 
by the Choctaws, his allies, and on the 24th began the building of a 
rude fort seven miles distant from the Chickasaw village. When they 
moved against the Chickasaw stockade they met with a heavy loss, and 
were obliged to retreat. They were much puzzled at seeing Europeans 
among the Chickasaw Indians. These they supposed to be Englishmen, 
but they were the Frenchmen from Kaskaskia, who had moved upon 
the day set by Bienville and had been taken prisoners. The Indian 
allies had forced the commander to attack, instead of allowing them to 
wait, as his judgment told him, for the reinforcement from New Orleans. 
After the retreat of Bienville on the 24tli, this unfortunate commander 
and all of his followers were taken to a plain, tied to stakes, and burned 
to death. Bienville's warriors, who had been left upon the field over 
night, had their bodies cut to pieces and their heads stuck defiantly on 
the palisades of the Chickasaws. 

Four years later, in 1740, Bienville led another expedition against 
the Chickasaws by wa)- of the Mississippi river. He had heavy reinforce- 
ments from Fort Assumption, which was near the site of the present 
cit}' of Memphis. The Chickasaws were alarmed, and offered to 
surrender all the white slaves in their possession on condition of peace. 
Bienville accepted the tenns. After an absence of ten months the army 
returned to New Orleans. Fort Assumption was torn down, and no 



THE CHEVALIER LA SALLE. 1 85 

other military post was put in its place for one hundred and twenty- 
years. In 1 741 Bienville returned to France. 

Three years later than this there were but 1,700 white men, 1,500 
women, and 2,020 slaves in the whole Mississippi valley, after thirty 
years of expensive colonization. Ffteen years later, when Louis X\' 
had come to the throne, there was a falling off of these homes. For 
eight years after the return of Bienville to France, the Marquis de 
Vandreuil held the position of royal Governor. The colony was in 
constant alarm from fear of the English by sea and the Indians by land 
— alarm which was greater than the case called for. In 1751 the 
Marquis had two thousand soldiers under his orders and the expenses of 
the colony were entirely out of proportion to its comforts. It was the 
farmers, quietly working upon their plantations, who conquered the 
Mississippi valley and made it valuable. Cotton was being raised, gin 
and sugar manufactured, indigo cultivated, and the common vegetables 
and fruits raised for the personal use of the settlers. Already in Illinois 
wheat was becoming so successful a product that it was exported to the 
distant seaport. The mines of copper and lead were being developed 
in the Northwest, and silk and tobacco were being introduced. 

Following, came the administration of Kerleric, which lasted for ten 
years. At the end of that time he was thrown into the Bastile, accused 
with misappropriating money. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
Parkman's "France and England in North America." 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 



•I^a JfHnit nf iolh. 



CALIFORNIA — SPANISH EXPLORERS — THE JOURNEY OF SIR FRANCIS 

DRAKE — THE COAST INDIANS — EXPEDITION OF ESPEJC 

OVERTHROW OF THE JESUITS — ONATE AND HIS 

LABORS — THE MISSIONS AT THE SOUTH — 

THE DECLINE OF SPAIN AND HER 

COLONIES. 




-<^ 



ALIFORNIA did not receive its name as the 
other States did. It took it from a certain fantastic 
romance, written by a Spanish author. This 
romance pictured an imaginary kingdom glittering 
with gold and diamonds, in which the most 
extraordinary events were constantly taking place, 
and where riches were free to everyone. The 
name of this remarkable land was California, and, oddly 
enough, its imaginary riches were hardly greater than 
those which the most western of our States actually 
contained, Cortez, always ambitious and eager for con- 
quests, sent out Hernando Grijalva, in 1534, on an 
expedition of discovery to the Pacific coast. It is not 
strange that the Spaniards gave the name of the 
romance to a country whose charms are so great that the people marvel 
over them to-day as they did then. The methods of Grijalva were too 
languid to suit the nervous and impatient Cortez, and the following 
year, taking four hundred Spaniards and three hundred slaves with him, 
he himself embarked for California, Not only was he impatient for 
the conquest of this productive land, but was anxious to see if he could 
learn the fate of a small expedition which he had previously sent north 
by land. He had only well started on his journey of discovery, when 
he heard that his civil power had been taken from him and given to 
the Viceroy, Mendoza, His military position was all that was left him, 



THE LAND OF GOLD. 1 87 

and he was obliged to return to Mexico, after coasting on both sides of 
the Gulf of California. Francisco de Ulloa was sent to take up the 
exploration. Pearls were found in the Gulf of California at the very 
first, and the pearl fishery that has continued to this day was systemat- 
ically taken up then. Reports of the richness of this country excited 
the jealousy of Mendoza, the ruler of Mexico, and he determined to 
send out an explorer himself in the same direction that Ulloa had 
taken. The Spaniards were excited with the reports brought to them 
by the four men who had started with Narvaez from Florida. These 
men, it will be recollected, traveled alone from Florida to the Gulf of 
California. They brought tales of seven wonderful cities which 
contained castles built of gold, silver, turquoise and diamonds. 
Vasquez Coronado was the man chosen to go in search of these. It 
was not long before he reached the territor}^ which the men had 
described as the "seven cities" but in them, alas! was found no gold, 
si'lver, diamonds nor turquoise. There were, however, very substan- 
tial buildings, three or four lofts high, with ladders leading from one 
story to another. The people wore cotton dresses and had taste in 
cookery. But Coronado was not after evidences of civilization, but in 
search of gold, and he pushed hastily on. Two years of disappoint- 
ment followed, until at length the perplexed and disheartened Spaniard 
went mad, and his party returned to Mexico. Meantime, in 1543 a 
voyage was made northward along the coast, which laid open to the 
Spaniards a portion of California. This was under the charge of 
Cabrillo, who went as far north as Cape Mendosino. He found it too 
cold to go farther. From this point the Spanish fleets, for long years 
after, took their departure on their journey to the East Indies. Other 
Spanish voyagers made much the same trip, but none of them discov- 
ered a seaport in California. 

This, Sir Francis Drake, the English seaman, who has been written 
of in the first chapters of this book, did. It will be remembered that 
he passed through the Straits of Magellan and came up the Pacific 
Ocean in 1578. One of his vessels was lost in a gale, the second 
deserted him, and he was left to make his voyage alone in the Pelican. 
His crew suffered terribly from the cold, on reaching forty-eight degrees 
north latitude, although it was in the month of June. He hurried 
away from this discouraging port and landed in a "goodly bay," which 
some identify with the beautiful Bay of San Francisco. 

When the Indians heard of the arrival of the white men, they 
gathered in large numbers to see them, and the King, a man of 



1 88 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

dignified stature, came, with a guard of a hundred braves, to welcome 
him. In front of the King marched a tall man carrying a sceptre of 
black wood a yard and a half long. Upon it hung two crowns, and 
dangling from these were chains of bone. Each link was a mark of 
honor. All of the Indians wore skins, and the King wore rabbit's 
skin — a mark of royal distinction. Their heads were decorated with 
feathers of rare birds. They entertained Drake with a long ceremou}-, 
ending in a dance, after which they asked the Englishman to be King 
of their country. The crown was set upon Drake's head, and all the 
chains of honor hung about his neck. Drake thought it wise to accept 
these honors in the spirit which they were given, and took the country 
in the name and for the use of Queen Elizabeth. It must not be 
forgotten that this was away back in 1579. Then followed a wild 
scene in which all the common people yelled and howled, and tore the 
skin from their faces with their nails, meaning to offer sacrifice to their 
new and mysterious Governor. Drake and his friends made a visit into 
the interior, where the Indian villages were. They found the country 
fruitful, filled with game and excellently adapted for settlement. 
Neither Drake nor his men would have objected to lingering longer 
among these friendly tribes in a land of such unusual beauty, but their 
disabled ship was repaired and there was need for hastening back with 
reports of the voyage. A monument was left in the port composed of 
a copper plate, fastened to a wooden post. Upon this plate was engraved 
the right of Queen Elizabeth to the kingdom, the Queen's picture and 
Drake's arms. The Indians mourned exceedingly when Drake left 
them, and built bright fires on the cliffs to cheer his departure over the 
waters. 

In 1 58 1, Augustine Reyes, a Franciscan Father, went northward 
and rediscovered the pleasant land of which Coronado had written, and 
was able to guess at the site of the "seven cities." Reyes started 
thither, with two brethren of his order and eio^ht soldiers, for the 
purpose of making converts to the Catholic faith'amoug the Indians. 
But one of the friars was killed by the Indians, and the soldiers, fearing 
for their safety, deserted, leaving the two friars to go on alone. When 
the soldiers passed Santa Barbara, they confessed the state they had left 
the unfortunate Fathers in, and aroused the indignation of Antonio de 
Espejo, who hurried to their relief with a caravan of fifteen horses and 
mules and some Indian guides. Espejo discovered many interesting 
tribes of Indians who had progressed in the arts and industries to an 
unusual extent. Some of them wore cotton garments, striped with 



THE LAND OF GOLD. 1 89 

white and blue. Others understood the tanning of leather so well that 
the Spaniards held it to be as fine as anything done in Flanders. The 
great rivers and mighty forests, the mountains and the fruitful plains 
delighted them, but they were obliged to press on after the priests whom 
they were hurrying to succor. In the country which they named New 
Mexico, they found people dressed in cotton and leather, with good 
boots and shoes. At last they learned that the poor Franciscan Fathers 
had been killed, and Espejo devoted himself merely to exploration, 
leaving a large part of his company in camp near the Tiguas tribe of 
the "sixteen towns." He found idols in some of the houses; umbrellas 
decorated with the sun, moon and stars were in use by one tribe, and 
many had wrought the precious metals into forms of ornament. Espe- 
cially interesting was the town of Acoma, which was inhabited by six 
thousand Indians. It was built on a high cliff, fifty platfonns in height, 
and reached by steps cut out of the rock. The water was drawn from 
cisterns. Of course no crops could be raised upon the site of this rocky 
city. The farms lay two leagues away and were irrigated by artificial 
means. 

Espejo at length visited the country which Coronado had entered 
half a century before. Here he found Christians and some baptized 
Indians, who understood the Spanish language. This was the great 
province of Zuni, which still holds its name and keeps the old customs 
as Espejo saw them in the last half of the sixteenth century. After 
journeying still farther, Espejo came to rich silver mines, but it is not 
known in what direction he journeyed. When Espejo rejoined his 
party he found most of them determined to return to Santa Barbara. 
He, with eight soldiers, concluded to explore the river Del Norte. It 
was two years before he ended his journey ings. 

Until 1595 the great western territory remained undisturbed. Then 
the Count Monterey, at that time Viceroy of Mexico, and Juan de Onate 
went into New Mexico to plant colonies in the valley of the Rio Grande. 
Sante Fe, which was one of Onate' s settlements, was founded before 
Jamestown, and is, therefore, next to St. Augustine, the oldest town in 
the United States. This settlement had in its beginning one hundred 
soldiers and five hundred settlers, and the number continued to be about 
the same for a hundred years. Indian raids were not infrequent, and 
the people could offer but little resistance until 1692, when Diego 
de Barges established Spanish garrisons in the valley. El Paso, on the 
Mexican frontier, was one of Onate' s settlements. 

Farther west, on the ocean coast, Spain followed up the discoveries 



190 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

of Drake. It is not necessary to mention each one of these. Spanish 
names were given to the coast, and Spain claimed it as her own, 
although she took but very languid interest in it. It was the Jesuits, 
anxious for the saving of souls, who finally settled upon the peninsula 
of California. Francisco Kino, a devoted brother of the Jesuit society, 
infused with a noble enthusiasm, undertook to Christianize the penin- 
sula. A series of missions were founded by him, and in 1697 he 
succeeded in getting a mission built in lower California. On the west 
side of the gulf was Father Salvatierra, and on the east side Father 
Kino. These two men, both systematic and capable of clear leadership, 
constantly helped one another. The s)-stem of the Fathers was very 
complete. The Indians were taught the Spanish language, and were 
induced to attend religious services ever}' day. Those who did so were 
supplied with rations. The sick, old and helpless were provided with 
food. All of the Indians were given coarse cloth, cloaks and blankets. 
The missionaries instructed them in the cultivation of their fields, but 
finding that the Indians would not harvest and preserve the crops, they 
themselves took care of them. Wine was one of the first products of 
California, but the Fathers soon found it was necessary to keep it from 
the Indians. 

By the time that the missions had existed in California for a gener- 
ation they were surrounded with a semi-civilized set of men and women 
who gave up the wild life of the forest for the more laborious and quiet 
one of the farms. 

Lonely and desolate, the little missions stood out from the savagery'' 
of the villages. In them there were often but two Spaniards, a Father 
and a soldier. The missions were well built, with a touch of that 
Moorish architecture which the Spaniards had made their own. Not 
alone were the missions the schools, the churches and the depot for sup- 
plies, but they served for courts of justice as well, and an)' culprit was 
punished there according to the judgment of the Spaniards. The 
children were educated in reading, writing and singing, and many of them 
were sent to Soreto, the chief station. Such of these as showed unusual 
intelligence were made church- wardens at the various rancherios. 
One Father taught his Indians to spin wool and weave it, and he him- 
self made the staffs, wheels and looms. This was opposed to the 
policy of Spain, which wished to force all her colonists to purchase man- 
ufactures direct from home. It was this same policy which kept the 
settlements of the Spaniards so far behind those of the English and 
French. Cortcz tried to encourage manufactures in the colonies, but 



THE LAND OF GOLD. 191 

his policy was overturned, and the people received from Mexico the 
cloth which had been made in Holland and sold in Spain. The Fathers 
continued to form new missions whenever some benefactor could be 
found who would give an endowment of $10,000, $6,000 of which was 
put at interest and devoted to the education and care of the Indians. 
Each Father kept a chronicle of all which happened to him, and these 
engaging narratives helped not a little in the collection of money in 
Mexico and Spain. The mines of Arizona began to be richly devel- 
oped, and it is still possible to see the remains of old mining operations 
there. Every little while the Indians, who seemed so obedient and 
trustful, would uprise suddenly and war with each other in their old 
savage fashion. In their hearts they resented this easy conquest of the 
Spaniards. The eloquence of their orators was leveled against the 
woman-like patience with which the braves sat down to eat the bread of 
charity, and from time to time the well-fed proteges of the missions 
were lashed into insurrection. After the death of Father Kino, in 171 1, 
the missions began to decay. He had baptized more than forty thou- 
sand infidels, founded numerous churches, and conducted valuable 
explorations. 

Spain, herself, was losing her glory, and it was not strange that the 
little missions, to which she had always been more or less indifferent, 
should suffer early from her decline. After this comes a history of 
revolts, and at last, June 25, 1767, came the decree of the council 
chamber of Charles III for the expulsion of the Jesuits. 

The land upon the Gulf of Mexico had not been entirely neglected 
by the Spaniards. In 1690 a mission was established at the spot where 
La Salle's unfortunate colony had been. Other missions and militan- 
posts were established about Texas and New Mexico. But in 1693 ^^^^ 
Spaniards were driven from them by the Indians. However, there still 
remained, on the west side of the Rio Grande, the posts known as 
Presidio del Norte and El Paso. 

In 1 71 2, Louis the XIV gave the grant of Louisiana to Antonio 
Crozat, which included the land reaching to the Rio Grande on the 
west. Between this countr>' and Mexico there has always been a brisk 
smuggling trade. The first Texas missions were founded by the Fran- 
ciscan Fathers, who used much the same plan that the Jesuits had done 
farther west. When the war of 1718 was declared between France and 
Spain, the little settlements on these distant frontiers thought it 
behooved them to imitate the home countries, and war with each other. 
One large expedition was fitted out to move against the French settle- 



192 



THE vSTORY OF AMERICA, 



inents of the Upper Mississippi. The Spaniards lost their way and fell 
in with some Indians who massacred them and took all of their arms. 
After this Spain made no other attempt to settle on the land of the 
Upper Mississippi. In 1728 the Spanish government transported fonr 
hundred from the Canary Islands to Texas. A portion of these settled 
at San Antonio, Texas, but the growth of Texas was very slow, and the 
deadly policy of Spain took the life from the colonists. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Bancroft's "Historj' of California." 

Hittell's "Historj' of San Francisco." 

Help's "Spanish Conquest of America." 

Kip's "Early Jesuit Missions in North America." 

Curtis' "Children of the Sun." 




CHAPTER XXXVII. 



\t iarnlinas. 



SIR NATHANIEL JOHNSON IN CAROLINA — STRATEGY AT FORT JOHNSON 
— RELIGIOUS DIFFERENCES — MASSACRE OF 1711 — UPRISING 
IN SOUTH CAROLINA — THE YEMASSEES — THE BUC- 
CANEERS — REBELLION AGAINST THE 
PROPRIETORS. 



tFTER Governor Moore's administration in South 

Carolina, which, through his ill-advised move 

against St. Augustine, plunged the colony so 

J^Vj,„ heavily in debt, Sir Nathaniel Johnson was 

^^^MW" appointed to office in Moore's place. Johnson 




was a man who had more of the instincts of a 
general than of a ruler. His administration was 
marked by one of those religious disputes which made 
so much trouble in all the early colonies. It arose 
from an act passed by his first assembly, taking away 
the civil rights from all who blasphemed the Trinity, or 
refused to believe in the divine authority of the Bible, 
and condemning them to three years' imprisonment 
Following this, came a law which required every 
citizen who belonged to the assembly to conform to 
the religion of the Church of England. By this law every Puritan of 
whatever shade of belief was robbed of his civil rights, though these 
dissenters were far greater in number than the Episcopalians. This 
Episcopal minority, of course, represented the Lord Proprietors who 
governed the colony. The dissenters sent John Ashe to England to 
beg the protection of the Proprietors, but he got no satisfaction from 
them. Another agent, Joseph Boone, was sent to England to make an 
appeal to the House of Lords. They referred the petition to the Queen, 
with a prayer that the wrongs of the colonists might be righted, and 
Oueen Anne declared the laws to be null and void. 



194 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Though Johnson was so injudicious a ruler, he had some qualities 
which were not to be despised. At one time, when he learned that an 
attack was to be made upon Charleston by the French and Spanish, he 
superintended a pretty piece of strategy, which is worth relating. On 
James Island, in Charleston harbor, Fort Johnson held a few men for 
the protection of the city. William Rliett was placed as admiral over 
the militia of the province, which, with guns and ammunition, was put 
on board six merchant vessels which were in harbor. These prepara- 
tions had barely been completed when the invading fleet, consisting of 
a frigate and four smaller vessels, under the command of Captain Le 
Feboure, sailed up and demanded a surrender. The man who brought 
the demand was blindfolded and taken from fortification to fortification. 
In each one of these he saw a well-anned and uniformed force, and 
never guessed that the men in each fortification were always the same, 
and that they hurried quietly before his blindfolded eyes. He went 
back to his commander and reported the extent of the force. Rhett 
managed his little fleet of merchant vessels with such skill that Le 
Feboure was unable to make a landing, and in a few days the French 
retreated. 

The religious differences of the colony were not easily quieted. In 
spite of the fact that John Archdale, the Quaker, was one of the 
Proprietors, the Friends were at one time refused seats in the assembl)'. 
The war of words between the dissenters and the Episcopalians was 
constant. These disputes led to serious political complications. After 
Johnson was removed. South Carolina was in doubt for some time as to 
who was really Governor, such misunderstandings and contentions 
were there. When the claimants for ofBce tried to summon an armed 
force and to move against each other, the militia quietly refused to 
obey. It was not until 17 13 that Charles Eden was appointed Governor 
by the Proprietors and that religious freedom was allowed to be the 
right of every man in the Carolinas. During the last four years the 
colonies had not only been rent by internal rebellion and bitter perse- 
cutions, but by savage wars with the Indians as well. In 171 1 the 
Tuscaroras succeeded in uniting in North Carolina all of the smaller 
tribes, as well as the half-civilized Indians about the colonies, in a 
general conspiracy against the English. On an appointed morning a 
single war-whoop was given just at break of day and in every house the 
servants rose against their masters. All about the villages lurked bands 
of savages waiting to fall upon the settlements in an unguarded moment. 
Few Indian massacres were conducted with so nnich fierceness and 



THE CAROLINAS. I95 

decision. In most cases there was a blunder somewhere, but here, 
unfortunately, there was none. Many hundred were killed within that 
hour at day-break through all the settlements, and for three days the 
tide of murder swept on from south to north, stopping at last for want of 
more victims to kill. In all Indian warfare the burning of houses and 
destruction of property was as much a part of the fight as the killing 
of men. Governor Hyde begged Virginia and South Carolina for aid. 
Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, interceded with the Indians, but 
Governor Craven, of South Carolina, sent a body of militia and several 
hundred friendly Indians hurriedly thro ugh the wilderness to the aid of 
the sister colon}'. In an open battle the Tuscaroras suffered heavy loss. 
The distracted remnant of settlers in North Carolina kept shut up in 
their garrison. The crops they had planted with so much care were 
destroyed. Little was left of the pleasant farms and villages. The 
little store of wealth which had been accumulated through the patient 
years was gone, and in almost every family there was mourning for the 
murdered. Through the long winter of 17 13 this remnant of a colony 
dragged out a wretched existence, owing what little life it had to the 
protection of the soldiers from the South. A treaty was made at last 
with the Indians, and the soldiers retired to their homes. When the 
Indians were freed from their presence they broke their treaty, and the 
following summer was spent by both the English and the Indians in 
preparations for a renewal of the war. At the close of the summer 
Governor Hyde died, and Colonel Pollock was chosen Governor. He 
used the best means in his power for the protection of his colony. 
Realizing its limited resources and how few men it had to defend it, he 
sowed division among the Indians, weakening their party. Help came 
both from Virginia and South Carolina, and in an attack upon the 
Indians, in the spring, many of them were killed and eight hundred 
taken prisoners and carried to South Carolina as slaves. 

The next colony to suffer from the Indians was South Carolina 
itself. In the spring of 1715 there was a sudden uprising among the 
Yemassees, the tribe who had been the allies of the South Carolinians 
in their conflict with the Tuscaroras. As in North Carolina, a day was 
agreed upon, and the outbreak came with horrible suddenness. More 
than four hundred were murdered, and many hundred homes were 
burned. There was in the whole colony only one proof of friendship 
between the races. Sanute, a Yemassee chief, had a great reverence 
for a bonny Scotch woman who lived with her husband upon the 
frontier. After the habit of his race when they vowed friendship, he 



196 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

had washed his face with scented water and crossed his hands upon his 
breast, vowing that he should eternally be her friend. When the 
massacre was agreed upon, he warned her, and she and her husband fled 
to the coast. An organized force was led against the Yemassees by 
Governor Craven, and the Indians were defeated, and pushed through 
the wilderness across the Florida border. The Indians were now 
practically driven from the Carolinas — a countr)' full of traditions for 
them and for which they had bravely fought. All the lands which had 
been reserved to the Yemassees were taken possession of b)- the colony, 
but these the Proprietors wrenched from them for their own use, and 
the new emigrants, hastening over to the territory' which was opened 
up to them, were ruined by the demands for rent and purchase money. 
Governor Craven, of South Carolina, was succeeded by Robert Johnson, 
a son of the former Governor, Sir Nathaniel Johnson. He took charge 
of the colony under great difficulties. The Proprietors had taken away 
all independent legislation from the assembly, and assumed the right to 
reject and repeal all laws as they saw fit. The revenue was taken off 
the imported British goods, which had been used for the support of the 
colony, and the pirates who lurked about the Carolinian coast had 
become so bold that it was necessary to incur the expense of open 
conflict with them. The vessels of these buccaneers were so well armed 
and manned that they were able to capture merchantmen within sight 
of Charleston. When any person fell into their hands they extracted 
a ransom from the government. The admiral of these rovers was the 
famous Blackbeard, who had a squadron of six vessels under his 
command. He and his dare-devil captains had a station at the mouth 
of Cape Fear river. From here they could sally out upon any vessels 
bound for Charleston, and thus seriously injure the commerce of the 
colony. William Rhett, who had so cleverly managed the little fleet of 
merchantmen at the time of the French invasion, was put in command 
of a ship sent out to capture Steed-Bonnet, one of Blackbeard's most 
dreaded allies. It had been thought almost impossible to take him, but 
Rhett attacked his pirate vessel with its crew of thirty, captured them 
and took them to Charleston, where they were hanged. Another of 
the pirate captains, Morely, angered at his companions' fate, soon after 
this sailed defiantly into the mouth of the harbor. Governor Johnson 
took command of his ship himself, and went out to meet him. The 
Governor's crew was triumphant, and boarded the pirate, killing every- 
one except the captain and one of the crew. These, though bleeding 
with many wounds, still refused to surrender, and were taken to 



THE CAROLINAS. 1 97 

Charleston and hurriedly hung, that the Carolinians might have the 
satisfaction of seeing them swing. A royal proclamation had been 
made some time before, promising pardon to all pirates who would 
surrender, and Blackbeard, with twenty of his friends, went to Governor 
Eden, of North Carolina, and took advantage of this proclamation. He 
rioted about the village for a time, and then took to his life on the sea 
again. Governor Spotswood, of Virginia, offered a large reward for his 
head. Two anned sloops were fitted out and sent after him. He heard 
of their coming and made preparations. His twenty-five men were 
ready to fight to the death. He boarded one of the sloops, which had 
got aground, with the expectation of making an easy victory, but a 
large reserv^ed force of men who had been kept below, sprang upon the 
deck as the pirates poured over the sides. A hand-to-hand fight 
followed, and the two captains closed upon each other. After they had 
fired their pistols they fought with dirks, until Blackbeard fell. The 
successful Virginian party boarded the pirate vessels and made prisoners 
of the rest of the crew. A negro had been put with a fire-brand at the 
magazine, with orders from the captain to blow up the ship as soon as 
she was taken, but he was discovered, and the act prevented. Black- 
beard's head was stuck upon the end of the bowsprit, and the young 
commander of the Virginian troops. Lieutenant Maynard, sailed proudly 
back into the Chesapeake. 

South Carolina had just got this well off" her mind and was freed from 
the depredations of the buccaneers, when she was threatened with 
Spanish invasion. Governor Johnson promptly called for money to 
prepare defences. The assembly said there was no money, and that the 
tax upon imports ought to be enough. The Governor reminded the 
assembly that the Proprietors had repealed the law. The assembly 
replied that they had nothing more to do with the matter. There was 
no Spanish invasion, as expected, but the difficulties between the Pro- 
prietors and the assembly had reached a climax. The people prepared 
for revolution, feeling they could stand the tyranny of the Proprietors 
no longer. Governor Johnson was held in respect and affection, in 
spite of the fact that he represented the hated Proprietors. His sin- 
cerity and good sense had won the hearts -of the people, but notwith- 
standing this, they refused now to obey him or pay any attention to his 
orders while he voiced the will of rulers so tyrannical and unjust. The 
people elected a Governor for themselves — Colonel James Moore — and he 
was inaugurated on the same day that the militia was assembled for the 
revolution in Charleston. Governor Johnson had been at his plantation, 



198 THE STORY OK AMERICA. 

and when he came into Charleston he found the city alive with excite- 
ment. Drums were beaten about the streets, the ships were decorated 
with bunting, work was given up, and in the town square stood the 
militia of the whole province. Johnson tried to reason with the lead- 
ing men. Some he indignantly reproved, and he ordered Colonel 
Parris, who was at the head of the troops, to disperse his men at 
once. This Parris refused to do, saying that he was there in obedience 
to the orders of the assembly, and when Johnson insisted upon having 
his commands obeyed, the soldiers were ordered to present their guns, 
and Johnson was told that he came nearer at the peril of his life. No 
one came to Johnson's side, and he saw that although he had not one 
enemy among those around him, the cause of the Proprietors was lost. 
He was led politely from the field by one of the leaders of the uprising, 
more popular than ever, perhaps, for the courage with which he had 
faced the loaded muskets of the troops. Both parties sent agents to 
P^ngland to present their sides of the difficulty, and in 1721 the govern- 
ment was taken away from the Proprietors and became a royal pro\'ince. 
Sir Francis Nicholson, who seemed to be the favorite adjuster of diffi- 
culties in the colonies, was sent over by the King. 

Queen Anne was dead, and George I had been King for over six 
years. Nicholson showed his usual good sense. He understood what 
the people needed, and was nothing if not a diplomat. He secured 
peaceful relations with both the Spaniards and the Yemassees. He 
signed treaties with the Cherokees and Creeks, on the west, and encour- 
aged the building of churches and the laying out of parishes, sending to 
England for pastors. This was not so much that he had any personal 
religious enthusiasm, as that he knew the church was one of the corner- 
stones of government, and that it would greatly help the people in 
educational as well as religious and social affiiirs. There had not been 
a public school in the whole province when he came, but he constantly 
urged the necessity for them, and even used his private means, until at 
the close of his four years of administration a fair system of education 
had been begun. In 1729, both the northern and southern colonies 
were purchased by the crown. Lord Carteret refusing to sell his share, 
and retaining all the territory from 34° 35' to the boundary of Virginia, 
and from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. After this. North and 
vSouth Carolina became legally two separate provinces. Burrington was 
the first royal Governor of North Carolina, but in a short time was dis- 
placed by Gabriel Johnson, who was appointed in 1734 and remained 
Governor of the colony for twenty years. In South Carolina, Robert 



THE CAROUNAS. 1 99 

Johnson, the Governor who had been so determined under the rule of 
the Proprietors, was sent back with a royal commission. He was wel- 
comed with enthusiasm, and for the four remaining years of his life 
worked to restore order, peace and prosperity. The colony was a 
mixed one, including English, French, Irish, Scotch and Spanish, dif- 
fering in taste, religion and educational prejudices. Besides these, 
were about twenty-two thousand African slaves, not to mention the half- 
civilized Indians who hung about the colonies. There were a great 
many white slaves at this time, and from these degraded people came 
the "poor whites" of the South. With such a population as this. Gov- 
ernor Johnson's difficulties were many, especially as the debts of South 
Carolina were heavier than ever before. But the colony was now too 
strong for its life to be again in danger. Its prosperity was assured. 

FOR FURTHER RF;aDING: 

History— Ramsey's "South Carolina." 

Williamson's "North Carolina." 
FlCTIO^■— W. G. Simms' "The Yema.ssee." 

A. J. Requier's "The Old Sanctuary." 
Matilda Douglas' "Elackbeard." 



CHAPTER XXXVUI. 



rom 



0^$ m 



ir 



>fmnri^. 



HOW GEORGIA CAME TO BE SETTLED THE EMIGRANTS — THE WESLEYS 

AND WHITEFIELD — THE MARCH OF THE SLAVES — THE 

SPANISH ATTACK GEORGIA AS A 

\ kV^ A <^^ ROYAL PROVINCE. 



HE English colonies of the North had been settled 
''^ by men who thought themselves righteous. 
The most southern colony of the English — 
Georgia — was settled by men who were manifesth' 
C ^ ^'W^tf^^^^ unrighteous. They were taken largely from the 

^ts^^A^T J^^^'^ °^ England. It came about through a 

movement for the reformation of English jails. James 
Oglethorpe, a humane gentleman, taking great interest 
in the poor and criminal classes of England, came to the 
conclusion that in another country they might be made 
good citizens. He procured a gT-ant of land in the 
summer of 1732, which was granted to twenty trustees 
for the benefit of the poor of the kingdom, and included 
all of the land between the Savannah and Altamaha 
rivers. Oglethorpe was a gentleman of courtly manners 
and of ver}' noble family. He was also a soldier of experience. Sub- 
scriptions were obtained through England for the benefit of this colon}-, 
and a company of people were carefully chosen from the destitute 
among the large cities. The\- were largely laborers out of employment, 
or debtors who had long been imprisoned by their creditors. Ogle- 
thorpe himself took charge of the first company of emigrants. This 
contained about one hundred and fourteen persons. The place which 
they selected for settlement was the site of the present city of Savannah. 
Under the intelligent direction of Oglethorpe, matters went well 
with the settlement from the beginning. The people were divided into 
three parties. One prepared land for cultivation, a second felled trees, 
and a third built palisades. Until the town was built the}- lived in 




FROM ALLEYS AND BY-WAYS. 20I 

tents. Their first care was to prepare a battery and a magazine. 
Laborers were brought from Charleston to help in building, and 
Oglethorpe laid out the plan of the beautiful city of Savannah, which 
has been preserved to this day, and which stands as a monument to his 
judgment and taste. Even the names of the streets are, in many cases, 
the same which he gave. In a short time other colonists were sent over 
from England. A treaty was made with the Indians, and local govern- 
ment was established. South Carolina was most friendly to the colony, 
and gave it much help. As soon as possible substantial dwellings were 
put up in place of the cabins first erected. The manufacture of silk 
was made one of the principal industries of the colony, and a light-house 
was built on Tybee Island, ninety feet in height. A company of 
Highlanders built Fort Argyle, on the Ogeechee river, as a defence 
against the Spanish. In the first year and a half the colony increased 
to nearly five hundred persons. Besides the poor of England, there 
came many Highlanders from Scotland, and they took most kindly to 
American life, being used to hunting and to the cultivation of a sterile 
soil. Their half-barbaric, picturesque garb, the music of their bagpipes, 
and their love for a life in the wilderness, won the admiration and 
friendship of the Indians. » 

There came, also, a company of Salzburgers to Georgia. These 
people were of a religious sect which had been persecuted for centuries. 
For a time a handful of them had found comparative peace in the 
valley of Salzburg, a province of Bavaria, but as they increased in 
numbers the wrath of the church was again turned against them, 
and they were driven from their homes, wives and husbands separated, 
and children taken to be raised in the Catholic Church. Twenty 
thousand of them found refuge in Prussia. Some fled to Holland and 
some to England. In England, they were kindly received, and it was 
thought that a safe asylum might be provided for them in the American 
colony. Fifty families, still living near Salzburg, accepted the invita- 
tion, and marched through Germany to the northern coast, carrying 
the young and old, with their few provisions, in rude carts. When 
they came through a Catholic district they were persecuted, but when 
the district was a Protestant one they were treated with great kindness, 
the peasants even carrying the women and children in their anns from 
one town to another. It was many, many weary months before they 
reached Savannah. Their industry and their long acquaintance with 
privation made them very valuable to a new colony, although, like the 
Friends, they did not believe in the taking up of arms, and would 



202 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

furnish no men to the fighting force of the community. Lands were 
given them on the Savannah river, which they selected themselves, and 
named the place Ebenezer. Soon after their arrival, in the spring of 
1734, Oglethorpe went to England, returning in the winter with about 
three hundred persons. With him came two young men b)- the name 
of Wesley, who stayed in Georgia but a short time. The people did 
not guess at that time the lofty strain of genius which ran in them, 
and which was to bring such powerful influence to bear on all 
Christendom in after years. John Wesley had a church at Savannah, 
and when he left, his friend, George Whitefield, who was to be no less 
noted than himself, took his place there. He and Wesley had been 
friends at Oxford. Oglethorpe brought with him on his second voyage 
two acts of Parliament. One of them prohibited the introduction of 
spirituous liquors in the colony and the other forbade the bringing of 
slaves. Unfortunately neither of these laws could be enforced. Wliite- 
field fought the introduction of slaves for a time, but at length he 
himself yielded to it, and worked large plantations with them, using 
the money for the benefit of an orphan asylum which he built near 
Savannah. His influence had much to do with the introduction of 
slaves in Georgia. 

A large part of the emigrants which Oglethorpe had brought over 
with him were put on the Island of St. Simons, at the mouth of the 
Altamaha river. The island was made formidable with forts and 
batteries. The Governor made an unfortunate move against St. Augus- 
tine, and was severely repulsed there. On his third visit to England he 
obtained a military commission which included South Carolina as well 
as Georgia. In the summer of 1739 he learned that the Spanish were 
tr>'ing to make allies of the Creeks, Choctaws and Chickasaws, who 
had formerly been friendly to the English. Zomo Chi-Chi, the 
friendly chief whom the first settlers of Savannah had used as an 
interpreter, begged Oglethorpe to attend a council three hundred miles 
northwest of Savannah, at which the chiefs were to gather. It took him 
one month to go and return, going through an unbroken wilderness, which 
no settler had previously entered. Not alone did he have the intermi- 
nable forests of the South to pass, but the bewildering swamps as 
well. He met chiefs of numerous tribes, who could bring seven thou- 
sand warriors into the field, and gained such influence over them that it 
was a protection to Georgia through all his life, and indeed long after that 
useful life had ended. Shortly after this, the slaves of Carolina arose 
and began a march toward Florida, destroying the plantations and 



FROM ALLEYS AND BY-WAYS. 203 

killing the whites as they went, but getting badly intoxicated, they 
were surrounded by a body of militia and dispersed, a few being taken 
prisoners and others killed. 

In 1742 the Spaniards made up their minds to retaliate for the 
English expedition against St. Augustine, and sent a fleet of thirty 
vessels, with a force of five thousand men, against Georgia. Oglethorpe 
got his Highland forces together from Darien, and all Indian allies who 
were in reach. A force of about eight hundred men were put in the 
field. Oglethorpe's action in this was gallant, though he only had a 
merchant vessel of twenty guns and two schooners of fourteen guns 
each. When the fleet of vessels sailed up St. Simons harbor, Ogle- 
thorpe himself took command of the vessels. He put eight schooners, 
with one man each, out for the purpose of harassing the vessels or of 
conveying himself from one place to another. He directed the batteries 
on shore as well. The fight lasted twenty hours, and the Spanish fleet 
fought their way through the fire of the batteries to the shore. 
Oglethorpe spiked his guns, destroyed all the provisions, and fell back 
upon Frederica, on St. Simons Island. The English were now behind 
those fine defences on which they had prided themselves. The head of 
the bay was difficult to navigate, and no ship could get through without 
* 'going about. ' ' As she did so, the batteries were so placed that she 
could be raked at once from three directions for three-fourths of a mile. 
The Spaniards dared not attempt this, and landed the fleet four miles 
below the town, with the intention of attacking the English at the rear 
with their force of five thousand men. A road ran southward from 
Frederica between a marsh and one of the tangled southern woods. At 
one place this road had a crescent shape, with a width of about sixty 
feet. The crescent ended in a wood, and here Oglethorpe left a detach- 
ment of troops, with some Indian allies. The Spaniards had no 
difficulty in driving this handful of men before them. Word was sent 
to the general, who hurried up, met the Spaniards at the entrance of 
the crescent and drove them back through the wood, into the open 
country beyond. Leaving a force of men there, he went back to 
Frederica, fearing an attack from the front. Finding all quiet there, 
he took a large reinforcement • and started once more down the road. 
He met his men flying before the Spaniards. He turned them back 
and hurried on, for he knew that if the enemy once got through the 
narrow road to the prairie, Frederica could not long stand out against 
five thousand men. The Spaniards had marched on, and two or three 
hundred of them lay in the crescent of the road. The Englishmen 



204 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

had fled before them. From the rear there was no danger of attack, 
and they quietly went into camp there, and began to prepare a meal. 
Bui the rear guard of the Highlanders, who had been so far behind 
that they could not aid their comrades, had leaped into the wood when 
the panic had seized their fellow-soldiers. They were hidden completely 
in the dense woods, and the Spaniards swept by them without dreaming 
that any man either could or would enter that dark tangle. With the 
Highlanders were a few Indians, who understood well this method of 
warfare. The Highlanders and Indians waited in perfect silence, not 
allowing one sound to escape them, until all of the arms of the Span- 
iards were stacked and they were resting on the ground and quietly 
taking their dinner. Then two Highland caps were raised in the air at 
different points. This was the signal for attack. Fire was poured in 
upon the Spaniards. The Highlanders were in no danger, for they could 
not be seen, and consequently could not be fought. The men in the 
roadway were falling with ever\^ shot. By the time Oglethorpe had 
reached the place the firing had ceased, and the Highlanders and Indians, 
shouting with triumph, stood in the midst of the Spaniards, hardly 
one of whom escaped. The Spaniards gave up the attempt of making 
an attack by land, and were easily defeated on the water, when, a few 
days later, an attempt was made to approach the town that way. The 
Spanish general, in the course of a few days, put his whole army on 
board his vessels, and went back to St. Augustine, persuaded that the 
English force must be a heavy one. Oglethorpe promptly manned his 
three boats and chased the fleet out of the sound. 

In 1744, General Oglethorpe returned to England, but he never, to 
the end of his ninety-six years of life, lost his interest in the colony. 
After his departure from Georgia, William Stephens was appointed 
president of the trustees. The colony had not kept up its first happ>' 
promise of prosperity. The manufacture of silk and of wine had both 
been unsuccessful. So much time had been spent in active warfare that 
lands had been neglected, and the prohibition of slave labor caused 
much discontent. The trustees, feeling that they could not govern the 
people to the satisfaction of either party, gave back the charter to the 
crown. For ten years after it became a royal province its growth was 
slow. In 1754, when a convention of delegates from the several 
colonies met at Albany to form a union, Georgia was not represented. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Jones' "Georgia." 

Fairbfiiik's "Florida." 
Carpenter's "Georgia." 
Jone.'i' "/-onio-Clii-Chi." 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 



CULPEPPER IN VIRGINIA — GOVERNOR EFFINGHAM — NICHOLSON AND 

ANDROS THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES 

MARYLAND THE CLERGYMEN 

OF VIRGINIA. 





I FTER the triumph of Berkeley over Bacon in 
Virginia, the Royalists were ver>' overbearing. 
Morals had become very loose. Every one in 
the colony worked for himself There was an 
absence of that public pride, which was the 
strength of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massa- 
chusetts. In 1675, lyord Culpepper came to Virginia 
with a commission for life over the province, to take 
up the ajBfairs of the colony where the proud old 
Governor Berkeley had dropped them. Culpepper's 
only interests in the colony were personal ones. He 
oppressed the people with fresh taxes. There was an 
over-production of tobacco, the only staple of the 
colony, and therefore a steady lowering of prices. 
Few towns sprung up, and the people living upon isolated plantations 
could not work in unity. The Assembly clamored for the rights of the 
people. They protested that a stop must be put to the over-production 
of tobacco. A few head-strong men undertook to put an end to this 
over-production by cutting the young plants. This may be known as 
the earliest American strike. Like most strikes, it only increased the 
difficult}-. There was much distress, too, because the currency of the 
colony was not worth its face value in gold. 

In 1684, Culpepper surrendered his patent and ceased to be governor. 
Virginia was once more a royal province. Lord Howard, of Effingham, 
became the ruler of affairs. He levied new duties, invented new 
oppressions, and hung the foolish plant cutters. Imprisonment was 
common for slight offenses. Effingham repealed man}' laws of the 
Assembly, and revived laws which were hateful to the colonies. Small 



2o6 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



rebellions were luiineroiis during his rnle, and the slave element con- 
stantly increasing and growing more turbnlent, threatened the lives of 
the free popnlation with insnrrection. Affairs were bettered some when 
Effingham went to England, and Colonel Francis Nicholson became 

Lieutenant-Governor. Though Nichol- 
son had made so foolish a figure of him- 
self in New York, he seemed to have a 
healthy influence upon Virginia. More 
liberal, modest, and unselfish than before, 
he went to work with a will to straighten 
out the complicated affairs of the colony. 
He visited every part of his province, 
that he might become familiar with the 
people and their condition; he gave 
entertainments, and himself superin- 
tended athletic sports. B}- his enter- 
prise, a great public road was built 
llirough the pro\'ince, and a public post- 
ofSce instituted. He decided that the 
best way to stop the over-production of 
tobacco was to encourage other industries, 
and he saw to it that flax was grown, 
leather manufactured, and that the trade 
with the Indians flourished. Drunken- 
ness he made a misdemeanor, punishable 
with the stocks, and instituted an almost 
Puritanic mode of living among the care- 
less, luxurious, and wine-loving Virgin- 
ians. He aided in the establishment of 
William and Mary College, which had 
heen established by the Rev. James 
lUair, the head of the Established Church 
of Virginia. This college was used then 
mainlv for the education of men intending to be clergymen, and here, 
at the time of Nicholson's endowment, there were over a hundred pupils. 
Though Nicholson only remained in Virginia about two years, he 
made many radical improvements. Sir Edmund Andros was sent over 
in his place. Like Nicholson, Andros had learned wisdom with expe- 
rience. He came among the Virginians in a somewhat humbler frame 
of mind than he had when he was first set over New England. Perhaps 




CAVALIICU OF VIRdlNIA. 



THE CAVALIERS OF VIRGINIA. 20/ 

the stern lessons which the Puritans taught him was not forgotten, and 
in any event he was more likely to be popular among the Episcopal 
royalists of Virginia than among the Puritan Whigs of Boston. He 
brought with him the charter of William and Mary College and began 
a good work in the colony by completing the post-office which Nich- 
olson had started. He also encouraged domestic manufacture and intro- 
duced cotton, although it did not succeed in Virginia. But the slave 
trade lay like a blight upon the colony, putting a check to true 
industry. A contest between President Blair, of William and Mary 
College, and Governor Andros resulted in the displacement of the latter 
from office, and Nicholson was called from Maryland to take his place. 

When Nicholson left Virginia, after his first administration there, 
he returned to England, and when a revolution in Maryland had 
deposed the government of Lord Baltimore, thus becoming a royal 
province, Nicholson was made the second royal Governor. In Mary- 
land, now the Catholics and now the Puritans were uppermost in polit- 
ical matters. In religious matters it was always liberal, and people of all 
faiths were welcomed there. The conflict between the Puritans and the 
Catholics was political, rather than religious. An armed revolution 
was brought against the Catholic government in 1681, and Baltimore's 
government was overthrown. The Protestant assembly took upon 
itself the direction of the affiiirs of the colony. 

Nicholson ruled here with satisfaction until he was recalled to Vir- 
ginia. He substituted the Church of England for the Catholic Church. 
This, it can easily be imagined, was a difficult matter. There was a great 
lack of clergymen in Maryland, and Nicholson had a considerable number 
brought over. Public worship was forbidden to the Catholics. The 
Puritans and the Quakers were not interfered with, although they were 
greatly discouraged. Nicholson had a school built in each county of 
the province, and a school embracing the higher branches, called King 
William's School, was opened at Annapolis, in 1694. Annapolis had 
been made the capital of the province by Nicholson. In a short time 
everyone of the thirty parishes had a small library, in each of which 
there were about fifty volumes. At Annapolis there was a larger 
library, containing eleven hundred volumes. All of these books were 
free to everyone in the colony. 

When Nicholson, fresh from these labors, went to Virginia, he found 
that the colony had grown in his absence. It now had a population of 
forty thousand. This second rule was not so satisfactory to the people as 
the first one had been. The House of Burgesses, which represented the 



2o8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

people, had grown ver>' strong. He had an open quarrel with the 
members because he desired that Virginia should contribute to the 
building of forts for the protection of the northern provinces against the 
Indians. The burgesses refused to give anything. Nicholson felt 
that the colony was disgraced by this refusal, and said so in terms more 
unmistakable than polite. He became unpopular, also, because he 
took away the power of the vestries in the churches. These vestries 
had the right of controlling, to an extent, the action of the clergy-men. 
These clergymen, be it said, were rather a rollicking and prodigal set. 
Frequently they were not even as orderly in their private living as were 
their careless parishioners. Their drinking was notorious. When 
Nicholson was guilty of the error of taking away the powers of the 
vestries the people felt that they were at the mercy of a lawless set of 
leaders, and complaints were sent to England against the Governor. 
These complaints were not all of a public nature. Nicholson had, 
unfortunately, made himself ridiculous in his love suit to a lady who 
refused to marry him, and he threatened the lives of her father and 
brothers. A thing of this sort naturally made him many enemies. 
Before he was deposed he laid out the town of Williamsburg, which 
was made the capital of the colony, and here, in the second year of its 
settlement, was held the first commencement of William and Mary 
College. This was nearly sixty years after the first commencement 
day of Harvard College, in Massachusetts. 

Nicholson was recalled to England, and for five years the colony 
managed its own affairs, under the council. Then Alexander Spots- 
wood arrived, bringing with him the writ of habeas corpus. Governor 
Spotswood was still young. He was full of life and ambition, with an 
mborn sense of justice and a true appreciation of happiness. He set 
about immediately reforming the courts, and tried to regulate the taxes. 
He was interested in the colony, and assisted it by raising a large fund 
for its support. He established a school for the education of Indian 
children also. Young and adventurous, he was not willing to stay 
cooped up in the settled part of his province, but desired to go be>ond 
those beautiful mountains which raise themselves in blue mists at the 
west. In August, 1716, he started from German town, on the Rappa- 
hannock, to cross the Blue Ridge. W^ith him, on fine horses, were a 
company of gentlemen, filled with as much curiosity and gayety as him- 
self Troops of hunters and servants went with them, and liquors and 
provisions were carried upon a train of horses. Every day this gallant 
company marched and hunted. With their trumpets, their guns, and 



THE CAVALIERS OF VIRGINIA. 2O9 

their songs, they awoke for the first time the hoarse echoes of the moun- 
tains. They crossed beyond the dividing ridge of the mountains, where 
the waters parted, and took possession of the beautiful valley beyond. In 
six weeks they returned, having traveled more than two hundred miles. 
Spotswood, in memory of this charming expedition, founded the order 
of the Knights of the Golden Horseshoe, giving each comrade who had 
accompanied him a little golden horseshoe to be worn as a badge. But 
it was sixteen years after this before the Shenandoah valley, which he 
and his merry companions had visited, was settled; and then the 
intruders came, not from Virginia, but from Pennsylvania, and were 
constituted largely of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. Germans from Penn- 
sylvania also scattered themselves through this fertile countr}''. 

Spotswood secured a treaty with the Indians, which gave to the Eng- 
lish all of the region east of the Blue Ridge and south of the Potomac. 
This treaty was of much value to Virginia. In 1722, Spotswood ceased 
to be Governor, but as a private citizen he was still valuable to the com- 
munity. He found beds of iron ore on his forty thousand acres of private 
propert)^, and he was the first to establish a furnace and foundry in Vir- 
ginia. Following him came Hugh Drysdale. The building up of the val- 
ley beyond the Blue Ridge brought many emigrants direct from Germany, 
and in the first half of the eighteenth century the population of Virginia 
was doubled twice. A better class of men began to come, who desired 
liberty and independence rather than riches, and who were willing to^ 
work themselves, instead of depending upon the toil of unhappy slaves.. 
The people who came now were of the middle classes, self- respectful,, 
industrious, and temperate. They had neither the arrogance of those 
of gentle blood, nor the viciousness of those unhappy creatures dragged 
from the slums of London. A more vigorous religious life was 
apparent, too. Following Dr>-sdale, came Governor Gooch, and he was 
in power when the great preacher, Whitefield, was welcomed on his 
first journey to Virginia. Governor Gooch, be it said, did not take part 
in this welcoming, but the people made up for his lack of enthusiasm. 
In 1736 a printing press was set up, and William Parkes published a 
weekly paper at Williamsburg. The colony was no longer made up 
entirely of plantations. Prosperous towns sprung up about the coast 
and the rivers. Norfolk, Fredricksburg, Falmouth, Richmond and 
Petersburg were founded and flourished. The life of the richer planters 
of Virginia was ver}^ luxurious. The women were renowned for their 
beauty and their coquetry. The men prided themselves upon their 
hunting and good fellowship. The entertainments of the day were cere- 



2IO 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



monioiis and stately, in violent contrast to the simplicity' cultivated in 
Massachusetts. 

In Maryland, the government had once more passed into the hands 
of the Baltimore family. Now the Baltimores represented the Protest- 
ant faction, having seceded from the Catholic Church. Six Lord Bal- 
timores ruled over Maryland, the last of them dying in 177 1. Their 
rule had always been wise and manly, and when Mar^dand passed into 
the hands of the royal government it was in a prosperous condition. In 
1750 the population was about one hundred and thirty thousand. Iron 
was being developed in the State, and a large number of furnaces and 
forges were working successfully. Woolen, linen, tanning, shoe- 
making and other trades were succeeding, but here, as in Virginia, too 
large a proportion of the people were slaves; there was an over-produc- 
tion of staples and an element of discontent. 

FOR FURTHKR READING; 
FiCTioM — Caruther's "Knights of the Horseshcx^." 




A MOKATIA.!* SKTTI.EMENT. 



CHAPTER XL. 



THE FIRST TRIAL FOR LIBEL IN AMERICA — THE NEGRO PLOT IN 

1 74 1 THE BURNING OF "QUACK" AND THE HANGING 

OF URY — THE MINGLING OF DUTCH AND ENGLISH 

IX NEW YORK THE GOVERNMENT OF 

^r^ \ r\ LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR CLARK. 



HEN Colonel Crosby came to New York, in 1732, 
to act as Governor, his coming brought about a 
difficulty which was the only thing to make his 
administration memorable. Rip Van Dam had 
been attending to affairs before the Governor's 
arrival, and was asked to give an equal partition of 
the salary and perquisites of the office in the interval 
between Crosby's appointment and his actual appearance 
in New York. The popular party sympathized with 
Van Dam, and, as usual, the aristocratic portion of the 
city was in sympathy with the royal Governor. A suit 
in equity was brought about, and the New York Weekly 
Journal laughed in rather an indiscreet way at the 
Governor. Two ballads were printed whose humor was 
considered to be of a libellous sort. It was decided that they should be 
burned in the public square by the common hangman, in the presence 
of the magistrates. The hangman burned them, but the magistrates 
refused to be present. The editor of the paper was arrested and brought 
to trial. The case was brought before the jury, and the prisoner was 
acquitted. It was held that the editor said nothing which was not true. 
It was perceived that to speak against people in power might not 
always be wrong, and that to tell the truth, however disagreeable, was 
a thing which should not be necessarily punished as an offense. This 
was the first trial of the kind in this country, and furnished a precedent 
which was long quoted. 




212 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Crosby only lived four years after his appointment, and George 
Clark, a member of the council, quietly ruled over New York for seven 
years. His administration was marked by one dark tragedy, for which 
he was not personally responsible any more than the city full of people 
about him. This was what is called the negro plot of 1741, when all 
New York went mad together. There were a few Spanish negroes in 
the place, who, though they were freemen in their own country, had 
been enslaved in New York. It was known that they were resentful, 
and when a large number of fires broke out about the city the blame 
was laid on them. The Governor's house was burned, and within a 
few days numerous other houses were found smoking. In most of the 
cases the fires were extinguished before they did much harm. But the 
people became excited over the matter, and when the crowd cried that 
the Spanish negroes had caused the fire, ever}'one was ready to take it up. 
It is true that the negroes had faithfully worked with the white men to 
extinguish the fires, but this was not thought of. All negroes found in 
the streets were arrested. Vague stories, lacking foundation, spread 
like wild-fire. It was thought that there was a plan to burn all of New 
York to the ground. A set of disreputable people who kept a saloon of 
the lowest order said that they knew of a conspiracy among the negroes. 
Among these people was one young girl, Mar>' Burton, a servant, who 
had been raised in the lowest surroundings. She was met by the 
dignified council and all of the most powerful men of New York, and 
urged to tell the truth. Anxious to save herself from any blame, 
frightened, and naturally vicious, it is not strange that she stated that 
there was a terrible plot to burn the city and to murder and rob its 
inhabitants. Every member of the bar wished to plead in behalf of the 
government, and not one person offered to present the cause of the 
friendless and quaking negroes who were imprisoned in the jail. The 
people demanded victims. They were willing to believe any story that 
might be told, even that of the lying, frightened child of fifteen. 
Others were found as willing as she to tell stories about the negroes, 
hoping to bring themselves into favor with the judge — for every 
doubtful person of New York was under suspicion. A few, indeed, 
thought their might be no truth in it and took pity on the poor negroes, 
but these were a hopelessly small majority. The negroes were wild 
with fright, and confessed to crimes which they had never committed. 
Standing on a pile of faggots which were presently to be lighted for their 
own consuming, it is not strange that they told of others implicated in 
the matter in the hope of saving themselves, but this it never did. 



A REIGN OF TERROR. 2 IT, 

They said that a few negroes had intended to watch the doors of Trinity 
Church on some morning, and to kill the congregation as it came out; 
that they were then going to murder the rest of the inhabitants, assume 
rule, and select a king from among themselves. The court believed 
this ridiculous stor>'. The most influential citizens of New York urged 
punishment, and in two or three months more than one hundred and 
fifty negroes were imprisoned. Over one hundred were convicted as 
conspirators, twelve of them were burned alive at the stake, eighteen 
were hanged, and seventy-two were transported as slaves to other 
countries. In the few cases where their masters came forward and 
protested their innocence, attempting to prove an alibi, the evidence 
was paid no attention to whatever. The terrified negroes were ready 
to confess to anything. One poor negro, named Quack, admitted that 
he set fire to the Governor's house; that he took a brand from the 
kitchen fire and put it on a beam under the roof; that the roof did not 
catch fire, and that the next day he did the same thing, puffing at the 
brand until it flamed. The truth of the matter was, that a plumber 
had been up on the roof with an open furnace of live coals; that the 
wind was high and some sparks lodged in the shingles. As the 
excitement grew the people began to fear a Popish plot. They hunted 
the town over for Catholic priests, but found none. There was a rumor 
that priests were coming to New York in the guise of dancing-masters, 
school-masters, music-teachers, etc. One quiet school teacher, John 
Ury, was arrested on suspicion. Mary Burton, the child who had 
brought so much trouble on the negroes, said that he was one of the 
men in the habit of frequenting the place at which she had lived, and 
which was supposed to be the gathering spot of the conspirators. 
Though many protested that Ury was an honorable and quiet man of 
godly life, he was hanged. At last Mary Burton went too far, and 
began to implicate gentlemen who wore ' 'ruffles, ' ' and who offered her 
presents of silk dresses. The judge and his friends thought this a good 
time to bring the examination to a close. 

Although this childish and abject excitement spoke so badly for 
New York, it was, as a matter of fact, growing in power. It had 
become the key of the colonies, so to speak. Presbyterians had come 
from Ireland and Protestants from France, toward the end of the seven- 
teenth century, and in 1710 three thousand of the Protestants who had 
fled to England, at the invasion of the Rhenish palatinate by Louis 
XIV, crossed to New York, settling upon the upper water of the Mohawk 
and Schoharie creeks. The Scotch, Scotch-Irish, Dutch and English 



214 THE STORY OK AMERICA. 

came in large numbers to the colony, spreading over the country and 
cultivating the land. School-houses were built among the villages. 
New York itself wore a most attractive appearance. It had a reputa- 
tion for great cleanliness and order. The beautiful Holland tiles and 
bricks still held place in their house-building. The English lived with 
great luxuriance and wore fashionable clothes, but the Dutch clung for 
the most part to the quaint and picturesque costumes of their father- 
land. The life for all was pleasant, and amusements were much more 
sought by the people of New York than by those of New England. 
In 1756 the population of New York City was twelve thousand. In 
1738 Lieutenant-Governor Clarke founded a school for the teaching of 
Latin, Greek and mathematics. The other colonies were beginning to 
send their products to this port for shipment across the sea. The 
royalists and common people were constantly at verbal war with each 
other, but they united sufficiently to increase the mercantile value of 
their place. They reluctantly took part in the movement against the 
French or Indians, and gave money grudgingly. The Governor was of 
warlike spirit, and felt it a shame that the people under him were so 
reluctant to do their share of fighting for the defence of the confedera- 
tion of the colonies, but the assembly and the militia united in 
disregarding his orders, and he realized, as did De Lancey, who 
followed him, that the time had come when concessions must be made, 
even by the King, to the stalwart burghers of the New World. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Brodhead's and O'Callaghan's "New York." 
Fiction — F. Spielhagen's "Deutsche Pioniere.' 
J. F. Cooper's "Sataustoc." 



CHAPTER XLI. 



LORD BELLOMOXT'S RULE OVER NEW YORK, NEW HAMPSHIRE AND 
MASSACHUSETTS — DUDLEY'S RULE — THE FRENCH AND ENG- 
LISH WAR OF 1 702 TAKING OF PORT ROYAL THE 

lumberers' difficulties in MAINE AND 
NEW HAMPSHIRE. 

"ORD BELLOMONT'S rule over New York, New 
Hampshire and Massachusetts was a pleasant one. 
Though he was a member of the High Church 
of England, he deferred to the Puritanism of his 
colonies. The assembly refused to vote him a 
salary, as it had done with all of the Governors 
who preceded him. But the money which it 
appropriated for him was considerable. The assembly 
insisted that it should have the right to make such 
appropriations as it pleased from year to year. The 
amount depended entirely upon the popularity of the 
Governor. By this means the colonies kept to them- 
selves a reserve which would send any obnoxious or too 
tyrannical ruler back to his own countr}'. Governor 
Bellomont made an effort to check the imlawful priva- 
teering of Rhode Island, for this little State had become the home of 
pirates. It was not unusual for some ship, hovering about the shore, to 
make out after a vessel at sea, capture it, bring it to shore, and 
appropriate its cargo. The harbor was never closed with ice, as was 
that of New York. The Gulf stream, flowing around the rocky shores 
of Rhode Island, kept it free through all the seasons, so it became the 
favorite resort of the sea rovers. Rhode Island had once had a poor reputa- 
tion for harboring those obnoxious persons who dissented from the Con- 
gregationalism of Massachusetts; it now gained a worse reputation from 
the favor it showed to the pirates. 




2l6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

For many a long year Connecticut and Rhode Island quarreled with 
each other about boundary lines, and it was not until 1703 that Connec- 
ticut was willing to accept the Pawcatuck river as her eastern line. 
When Bellomont died, Stoughton became Governor for a short time, 
when he also died, and Dudley was sent to manage the affairs of 
Massachusetts. In May, 1695, that Board of Trade was organized in 
Ivondon which regulated the colonial and commercial affairs until 
the American Revolution. Its interference with trade and commercial 
liberty was a constant source of vexation to the people. The detested 
Randolph was again sent over as surveyor-general. Dudle)- tried to 
carry into effect an article of the new Massachusetts charter which gave 
the Governor the power to reject the nominations of the General Court. 
Cotton Mather headed a strong party, which included all the leading 
clergy of the province, to put Dudley from ( Tlice. But Dudley also 
had a strong party among the ro}-alists, and this dispute served to keep 
up that internal dissension which Massachusetts was never free from. 

For five years there had been peace between the French and English, 
and those terrible Indian raids upon New Hampshire and the province 
of Maine had ceased. But in 1702 war was again declared between 
France and England, and the French and Indians of Canada once more 
felt free to vent their native hatred against the English colonies of 
America. Never had the Indians been more cruel, subtle and suc- 
cessful. The town of Deerfield, in Connecticut, was surprised b)- three 
hundred French and Indians one morning in February, 1704. The 
town had been guarded by sentries, for an attack was suspected ; but the 
savages in the woods waited until they retired at daylight, and then 
rushed u])on the people, who were just arising for the labors of the 
day. Fifty were killed, and a hundred of them were carried to Canada. 
Among these were children, who were given to the Jesuit priests that 
they might be raised in the Catholic faith. 

Many of the young women were married to Indians, and with 
that began the race of half-breeds, which filled the northwest with such 
good trappers and guides. It was not infrequent for the children stolen 
in this way to acquire such a love for Indian life that they could never 
bring one back to the dull restraints of Puritan ci\ilization. The free 
woods were dearer to them than the tedious town. The delights of the 
chase were preferred to the labors of the field. 

The French claimed the whole of Maine as far as the Kennebec, 
and had established a trading and missionary post among the Norridge- 
wock Indians, who dwelt among the upper waters of the river. The 



THE CLASH OF ARMS AND IDEAS. 217 

French and Indians united in their eflforts to keep the English east of 
the Kennebec, and every English fishing vessel found in Canadian 
waters was seized upon by the French men-of-war. Governor Dudley 
saw with apprehension the growing enmity of the Indians, and asked 
the Norridgewocks to meet him in council. The Indians did so, prom- 
ised friendship, and helped in the building of two great cairns of stone, 
which was a sign of lasting friendship. All of the time that the 
Indians were feigning to be in such an amiable mood, they were 
preparing to seize the Governor and his suite and give them into the 
hands of the French. The plan was not carried out, because a French 
party expected did not arrive in time. In less than six weeks after this 
an attack was made upon the settlements between the Kennebec and 
the Piscataqua. All over the province the people hurried to the garrison 
houses. The fields were no longer worked, except under the protection 
of a force of armed men. The settlers armed themselves and went in 
pursuit of the Indians, but could not find them. Several of these 
unsuccesful tramps were made upon snow-shoes through the unbroken 
snow of the wilderness. Colonel Church, the celebrated Indian fighter, 
came up from Massachusetts with over five hundred men to protect 
these northern settlements. But aside from destroying some villages and 
killing a few of the enemies in chance engagements, he did little. 

In the midst of winter the New Hampshire men fell upon the 
Indian village of the Norridgewocks, burning the French chapel and 
the wigwams. This made the Indians more unrelenting than ever. 
Within a few months they attacked many of the settlements of Maine, 
New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The difiiculty then, as in all 
Indian warfare, was that the Indians would never meet their enemies in 
open field, and more danger and expense was encountered in finding 
them than in fighting them. A high price was paid to everyone who 
brought in an Indian scalp to headquarters, a man's scalp being worth 
one hundred pounds, and that of a child or woman fifty pounds. 

Dudley was firm in his purpose to move against Canada and 
conquer it. This seemed to him the only way of freeing the colonies 
from their enemy. Colonel March was sent with a force of a thousand 
men, in 1707, to reduce Port Royal, in Noval Scotia. All through the 
winter and the spring the men fought in vain. They had been 
reduced from one thousand to two hundred in number, principally from 
the hardships of the winter in that latitude. Then came Nicholson's 
campaign with the New York men, which also failed. In 17 10 the 
place was taken by five regiments of troops which sailed from Boston 



2l8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

harbor. General Nicholson, of New York, commanded the expedition. 
Only forty lives were lost among the English, and Nova Scotia ceased 
to be a French province. 

In 1 7 14 Governor Dudley was removed from office. The Whigs 
had grown to be the stronger party, and they declared that the office of 
Governor was vacant. Following him came Colonel Burgess, who sold 
his commission to Samuel Shute. At the time Shute assumed authority 
Massachusetts contained ninety-four thousand inhabitants. It had one 
hundred and ninety vessels. In the fisheries were one hundred and 
fifty smacks. Manufactories of many sorts were flourishing to the great 
vexation of the English, who tried in vain to keep down colonial 
industry. 

About this time inoculation was first introduced in the colonies. 
Boston had suffered frightfully from small-pox. At three different times 
it had raged in the city. When vaccination was introduced by a 
physician named Boylston, it was fought not only by the doctors, but 
by the ministers as well. Cotton Mather was one of the few who 
encouraged the brave physician. 

Shute had the same trouble in Massachusetts which his predecessors 
had had. The assembly refused to vote him a fixed salary, and this, 
as usual, was made the subject of many quarrels. The currency of the 
colonies had fallen far below par, and the financial condition was gen- 
erally bad. Upon the north the Indians were constantly intrigued. 
The country was likely at any time to be plunged into continuous war. 
In matters of theology there was less sternness. Newspapers were 
becoming more common. Jonathan Edwards was writing his books on 
Calvanistic philosophy, and following him were a number of theolog- 
ical writers for whom he furnished inspiration. Increase Mather, the 
father of Cotton Mather, did not cease, even in his old age, to write 
religious pamphlets. Benjamin Franklin at this time was writing with 
versatility and vigor. A few years later than this, William Livingston, 
a journalist, and Governor of New Jersey, wrote a poem on philosophic 
solitude. William Smith, at one time president of William and Mar)- 
College, wrote an excellent history of the first discovery and settle- 
ment of Virginia. This was published in 1747. Cotton Mather, of 
course, expressed in newspaper and pamphlets his vigorous and com- 
bative ideas on the subjects of the day. 

The lumberers of Maine and New Hampshire suffered great injustice 
at this period from the King's surveyors, who went through the forests 
selecting the best of the trees and marking them with a broad arrow. 



THE CLASH OF ARMS AND IDEAS. 



219 



These the settlers were not allowed to touch. The fanners had a legal 
right to the land on which these trees stood, and they resented bitterly 
the stealing of their property. They were also kept from shipping 
timber to foreign countries — a matter which they felt concerned no one 
but themselves. In 1718, a number of Scotch Presbyterians came to 
New Hampshire. They introduced the manufacture of linen, the spin- 
ning of wool and the cultivation of the potato. In 1723 Shute left for 
England, and Wentworth became Governor of New Hampshire. The 
year before this the third Indian war had broken out in the northern 
provinces. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Drake's "Indian Wars." 

Cotton Mather's "Magnalia." 

Thornton's "Historical Relations of Xew Ftiijland to the 
English Coininonwfalth, ■ 




FROZEN IN. 



CHAPTER XLIl. 



rf 



expedition of maine and new hampshire against the nor- 
ridgewocks— the command of captain john lovell— 
william drummer in massachusetts — white- 
field's revival and Shirley's admin- 
istration — LOUISBURG THE 

surrender. 



ETWEEN the years 1722 and 1724 a harassing war- 
fare was kept up by the Indians. The savages crept 
in small bands about the frontiers of Maine and New 
Hampshire, falling, at the most unexpected times, 
upon unprotected homes. If a woman ventured 
alone into her yard, she was apt to be seized by the 
prowling Indians. A man journeying home in the 
twilight, knew that he did so at the imminent risk of his 
life. In 1724, Massachusetts and New Hampshire 
decided that an expedition must be sent oiit against the 
Norridgewock Indians. Twice before attempts had been 
made to break up the settlement of these Indians. 
Among them was a brave and determined man, Father 
Sebastian Rasle, a French priest who had gained immense 
influence over the Indians. He had lived among them thirty-seven 
years, and though he was a scholar, dropped his own language for that of 
the Norridgewocks and adopted their manner of living. The Indians 
loved him with all the intensity of their wild natures and were willing 
to meet any danger in his defense. 

The Englishmen knew that if they wished to succeed in subduing 
the Indians, they must first capture Rasle. Twice they had failed. 
On the 1 2th of August, 1724, they succeeded. Two hundred English- 
men rushed upon the Norridgewock village when most of the warriors 
were absent. Such as escaped from the rifles and swords flew into the 
woods, and Father Rasle, in attempting to turn the attention of the 




"AMERICANS ARE BORN REBELS." 221 

enemy from these flying women and children, was himself killed. The 
Englishmen stuffed his mouth with dirt and hacked his poor old body 
horribly. It wanted only this to inflame the Indians. Captain John 
Lovell organized an expedition which started in April, 1725, against 
the Pequawkett Indians, of Maine. The Indians lay in ambush for 
lyovell, and he and eight of his men were killed. The remaining 
twenty-three retreated under cover of night to the stockade, taking 
with them the men who could walk. One brave-hearted fellow. Lieu- 
tenant Robbins, who was mortally wounded, asked that a musket be 
left beside him so that he might have one more shot before he died. 
The men, after their wear}^ march, found the stockade deserted, and in 
continuing their march homeward, some of the wounded died on the 
way. There were few left of the Pequawkett Indians. 

But the English saw that yet sterner measures must be taken. 
They concluded, therefore, to move against the French, without whom 
the Indians might have lacked the courage to keep up their continuous 
fighting. Some commissioners were sent to the French Governor to 
inquire into his reasons for disturbing the treaty between France and 
England. The Governor was entirely under the influence of the Jesuit 
priests, who believed that it was to the glory of their religion to fight 
the Protestant Englishmen whenever they could. The commissioners 
succeeded only in getting the Governor to procure the release of some 
captives. A treaty was made between the English and the Eastern 
Indians in 1725, and for twenty years there was comparative peace. 
Thus, closed the third Indian war. 

New Hampshire was very anxious for a Governor of her own, who 
should in no way be beholden to Massachusetts authority. It was not 
until 1740 that she succeeded in getting the consent of the Crown to 
such a measure and that the boundary line which divided her from 
Massachusetts was definitely decided upon. Penning Wentworth, a son 
of Lieutenant-Governor Wentworth, was made the first Governor. He 
brought to his oflBce all of the dignity which the New Hampshire 
people could have desired. With a troop of guards aboutthim he rode 
in a pretentious coach, and lived in a house which, for those days, 
was little less than princely. The story of how he married pretty 
Martha Shortredge, one of his servants, is told so well by Mr. Long- 
fellow that it would be foolish to repeat it. 

In Massachusetts, William Drummer, the Lieutenant-Governor, 
was looking after the forces of the colony while Shute returned to 
England. Following, came Burnet, who had some bitter quarrels with 



222 THE vSTORY OK AMERICA. 

the assembh- on the old question of a fixed salary. In 1730 Jonathan 
Belcher was sent out from England as Governor. He refused to accept 
the grant of money voted him by the assembly, and dismissed the 
house. This had no effect upon the people, and at length the King 
was obliged to yield the point and consent that Massachusetts should 
do as she pleased about the payment of Governors. 

This was one of the strongest steps toward national independence — 
it was the greatest concession which the Crown of England had }-et 
made. William Shirley who succeeded him in office, was much liked. 
He was the first of the royal Governors who succeeded in keeping up 
cordial relations with the people. Whitefield's great religious revival, 
which was shaking New England from its foundation, may have had 
something to do with these amicable relations. It may seem surprising 
that there was much need for a revival of this sort in Puritan New 
England, but the truth was that the people had begun to feel the 
reaction which naturally followed in the wake of religious discipline so 
stern as that the early Puritans imposed. People had grown indifferent 
and worldly, but their religious traditions made their remorse all the 
more sharp, when they were awakened to a sense of their falling-off by 
a man of Whitefield's eloquence. The religious excitement grew so 
high that even the colde^"" could not stand out against it. The more 
sensible people did not approve of this excitement, and thought it was 
doing great harm to the nerv^ous and impressionable. 

In 1744 the French and English in the old country became involved 
in another war. The Governor of Breton, as soon as he heard of it, 
moved against a settlement of English fishermen on the island of 
Canso. The French had been very jealous of the English fishermen, 
and were glad of an excuse for striking a blow at them. The settlement 
at Canso was destroyed and the men sent to the French fortress at 
Louisburg. Governor Shirley at once began preparations for war. He 
made up his mind to take Louisburg. This was the strongest fortress 
in America. It had been twenty-five years in building, and cost 
France thirty millions of livres. At the southeastern point of Cape 
Breton was a walled town, two miles and a half in circumference. The 
stone rampart was over thirty feet high and in front of this ran a ditch 
eighty feet wide. The harbor was defended by a battery of thirty 28- 
pounders. Upon a little island just opposite was a batter}^' of still 
larger guns. The town was entered over a draw-bridge which was 
guarded by a circular battery of thirteen 24-pounders. The batteries 
and six bastions could mount one hundred and forty-eight cannons. 



"AMERICANS ARE BORN REBELS." 223 

Shirley's preparations were made in secret. Only the New England 
troops consented to join the enterprise. Shirley took with him 4,500 
men. Whitefield encouraged the expedition, and his influence was 
very valuable. Colonel William Pepperell was persuaded by Whitefield 
to take command of the expedition. The French heard nothing of the 
matter. All over the provinces a day of fasting and prayer was held. 
The troops met on the island of Canso; then, on April 29, 1744, they 
sailed for Cape Breton. A part of the English landed and set fire to 
some large warehouses filled with spirits. The smoke, drifting inland, 
so frightened the French that they spiked the guns of their batter}^ at 
the bottom of the harbor, and taking boats, retreated to their walled 
town. Thirteen men who were reconnoitering found that the battery- 
was deserted, and took possession. As they had no flag with them, one 
of the soldiers went up the flag-staff" with a red coat in his teeth and 
nailed it up, that the French might know they claimed possession. 
The French attacked them, but were held off" until reinforcements came 
up, when they again retreated. On May 5th, Pepperell threw up three 
batteries near the city. Guns and ammunition had been dragged 
through the swamps during the past fourteen days, and these were 
hurried into the batteries. Another batter>^ was thrown up within a 
short distance of the draw-bridge, but the town was not easily forced. 
Pepperell knew that the island battery must be taken. This could 
only be done by sending a fleet up the harbor. Commodore Warren, 
who was cruising around outside of the bay, had captured a French 
ship having sixty-four guns, six hundred men, and a quantity of 
military' stores on board. From the men on the captured ship, the 
English learned that the French were expecting a large reinforcement. 
The English decided to move at once. Pepperell tried a night attack 
with his scaling ladders, but his men were repulsed with a loss of sixty 
killed, and one hundred and twelve taken prisoners. The siege was 
still continued from the batteries. Pepperell was getting very short of 
ammunition, and some of his best guns burst. By the first week in 
June, fifteen hundred of his men were sick. Commodore Warren kept 
the French from carrying the news of the siege to Quebec. But the 
French were not alarmed, and felt no great need of reinforcement. 
They were well-trained soldiers; their enemies were farmers and 
mechanics, many of whom knew little about the use of their fire-arms. 
Pepperell built another batter>' within range of the island battery in the 
harbor. He had nearly ruined the draw-bridge battery by this time. 
Commodore Warren and General Pepperell decided to make an attack 



224 I'HE STORY OF AMERICA. 

together. Warren's fleet was drawn up in line and the land forces 
were put in a position to attack. This was the 15th of June, 1745. 
The French lost heart. They asked that hostilities might be suspended 
and terms of capitulation made. On the 17th of June, Pepperell 
marched into the fortress at the head of his plucky men. Governor 
Shirley hastened up and was given the keys of the place by the general. 
Six hundred and seventy regular troops, thirteen hundred militiamen, 
six hundred sailors and two thousand inhabitants were sent to France, 
The English had lost one hundred and thirty men. The French lost 
three hundred. General Pepperell was made a baronet, and was the 
first American to receive that honor. Warren was made admiral. 
Pepperell was also given high honors in the English army and 
presented with a table of silver and a service of plate by the city of 
London. For a year Louisburg was garrisoned by New England 
troops. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Leaky's "England in the Eighteenth Ceuturv" (Chapter on Whitefield.) 
Poetry — Whittier's "Mogg Megone." 
Whittier's "Mary Garvin." 



CHAPTER XLIII. 



*v 



^h 



nvu mtntm 






THE GROWING SPIRIT OF INDEPENDENCE — THE FIRST EXPEDITION 
AGAINST FORT DU QUESNE — THE COLONISTS FOR AGGRES- 
SION AND OFFENSE — BRADDOCK'S ILL-FATED EXPEDI- 
TION — GEORGE WASHINGTON'S FIRST AP- 
PEARANCE — BRADDOCK'S DEFEAT 
AND DEATH. 



N Boston, in the year 1747, there was an occur- 
rence which marked the growing independence 
of the colonies, and showed how near they were, 
even then, to revolution. Commodore Knowles, 
commanding an English man-of-war, sailed into 
Boston harbor, and to supply places of some 
sailors who had deserted, he took a press-gang from the 
merchant vessels of Boscon. As soon as the people 
learned that some of the Boston boys had been forced 
on the King's ship, they armed themselves with clubs 
and stones and hurried to the Governor's house, where 
the oMcers of the ship were being entertained. All day 
they surrounded the house, and in the evening they 
became so threatening that it required the utmost efforts 
of the Governor and other influential citizens to keep them from 
violence. Even then they sent brickbats crashing through the win- 
dows of the council chamber, and demanded that every officer in town 
belonging to the fleet should be seized and held till the Boston boys 
were released. The militia was ordered out next day by beat of drum, 
but the drummers were in full sympathy with the kidnaped sailors, 
and refused to obey orders. The mob was made up mostly of mechanics 
and laboring men, and by their authority alone the officers of the ship 
were held in custody for three days. Commodore Knowles threatened 
to bombard the town if they were not released. Governor Shirley, 




226 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

disgusted with the disorderly conduct of the citizens, went to the castle 
on the harbor that he might be out of a town where law was so disre- 
garded. The General Court passed a series of resolutions which 
expressed sorrow for the behavior of the citizens, but declared that the 
House would exert themselves to redress their grievances. The militia 
came out promptly, ready, and perhaps even anxious, for conflict. 
Governor Shirley returned to the city, and the Boston sailors were 
exchanged for the British officers of the man-of-war. When Knowles 
sailed out of the bay, everyone in Boston gathered on the whar\'es and 
shouted at the discomfiture of the Commodore, who went back to 
England with an appreciation of the fact that the people in the colonies 
would do pretty much as they chose. 

In 1 748 a treaty was made between France and England which 
returned to France the fortress of Louisburg, which the English had so 
gallantly taken. There was not a man in the colonies who did not feel 
this to be a personal insult. It .seemed as if the mother country- set a 
low price upon the lives of her subjects. The engagement had plunged 
the colonies heavily in debt, also, and it was some time before Parlia- 
ment voted the money to pay it. The treaty between the countries in 
the Old World had little effect upon the colonies in America. Hostilities 
were kept up on the border constantly, and when open war was resumed, 
in 1755, there was but little change in the attitude of the French Cana- 
dian and the English settlements. The French had built a chain of 
military posts along the great lakes and upon the highways of the river 
system. About these grew up little settlements. They even com- 
manded a part of the Mississippi. The English were pushing their 
settlements westward, and in 1748 the Ohio Company was fonned, 
which made use of the river communication by the Potomac and the 
eastern branches of the Ohio. A road was built over the mountains 
from Cumberland to Pittsburg, and exploring parties were sent out in 
1750 and 1 75 1, under Christopher Gist, who was surveyor of the com- 
pany. In 1753, Major George Wa.shington, a young Virginian, was 
sent out with Gist and others to visit the French forts which were 
encroaching upon the land which the English considered their own. 
The reports which he brought back in January, 1754, detennined Vir- 
ginia to fit out an expedition immediately. This was done. Washington 
was made second in command under Colonel Joshua Fr}-. The French 
were under Contrecoeur, who soon met a detachment of the English, 
drove them from the fort which they were building and occupied it 
himself Washington, who had command of the main bod}- of the 



"THEY NURSE TREASON WITH THEIR MILK." 



227 



army, had a gallant engagement at Great Meadows, but was defeated 
and forced to surrender. 

It had been proved that the colonies could not work independently. 
Benjamin Franklin and other of the wisest men of the colonies thought 
it was best to have a union. Congress assembled at Albany. Massa- 




GEORGE WASHINGTON IN HIS YOUTH. 
After the painting by C. W. Peale, and the engraving of J. W. Paradise. 



chusetts Bay, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, 
the Jerseys, Pennsylvania, Mar}land, Virginia and North and South 
Carolina sent delegates. Chiefs from six nations also met them there. 
This congress wished to meet annually, but the Board of Trade in 



228 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Ivondon would not permit it, thinking that it gave too much power to 
the colonists. In the convention it was agreed that war with Canada 
was necessar}\ 

In 1754, Edward Braddock was made Commander-in-chief of all the 
fortresses in North America. Six thousand regular troops were given 
by the Crown, ready for service, as well as the money for the purpose 
of raising a colonial army. It was Braddock' s intention to march 
against Fort Cumberland. Unfortunately, Braddock started from Vir- 
ginia, because the road had already been built from there. But this 
made his march an exhausting and expensive one. He did not 
understand the nature of warfare in America, although he was a man of 
much experience and bravery. He was used to the well-regulated 
warfare of Europe, and could not, or would not, understand the savage 
methods which the frontiersmen used, owing to the fact that the 
Indians were always allies with them and they had no choice but to 
employ their methods. Braddock had one thousand regular soldiers, 
thirty sailors, twelve hundred provincials, a train of artiller}', and 
wagons and horses which Benjamin Franklin had procured for him, 
beside the brave, friendly Indians. This line stretched along the narrow 
road. Had the Indians chosen at any time to attack it, as it wound its 
way through the great forest of white pines and the desolate mountains, 
it could have cut it into a dozen pieces. 

Washington was sent ahead with twelve hundred men, about half 
of the force, leaving the rest with the baggage and the horses at Little 
Meadows. There were not more than a thousand men under Contre- 
coeur holding the French fort. Contrecoeur thought that it might be 
safest to surrender at once, but De Beaujeu, one of his captains, asked 
permission to lay an ambuscade for the British. The Indians put on 
their war-paint and followed him. The Frenchmen were wild with 
enthusiasm. Braddock, proudly confident of his strength, moved on. 
Washington said afterward that he never saw so beautiful a sight as the 
British troops made on that morning when they were ordered as if on 
dress parade, and with their flying colors, their martial music and 
glittering uniforms, hastened toward the fort. Suddenly Beaujeu, 
dressed in a French hunting dress and wearing a silver gorget, bounded 
down hill. Behind him came the French and Indians. At a signal 
the Indians disappeared. The French fired upon the English, then all 
about from the hollows and the woods came the fearful shrieks of the 
Indians. The English stood steady in a compact body and returned the 
fire. Beaujeu was killed, but his men, fighting from behind trees and 



"THEY NURSE TREASON WITH THEIR MILK." 229 

in ravines, worked terrible destruction among the Englislimen, who 
were fighting after European methods on the clear ground. Washington 
wanted Braddock to allow the men to use the methods of the natives, 
but this was not soldierly, according to Braddock' s idea, and he would 
not permit it. Braddock had four horses shot under him, and was 
finally wounded himself. His army beat a wild retreat. A few faithful 
friends carried him with them. He died, giving up his command to 
Washington, and was buried at Great Meadows. The army marched 
to Philadelphia. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Spark's "I,ife of Washington." 

Columbus' "Life of Washington." 
Parknian's "Pontiac." 
Fiction— C. McKnight's "Old Fort Du Quesne." 
Wright's "Marcus Blair." 
Thackeray's "Virginians." 



CHAPTER XLIV. 



FRENCH AND ENGLISH SETTLEMENTS IN NOVA SCOTIA — THE RIVALRY 
BETWEEN THE SETTLEMENTS— COLONEL WIXSLOW 

DRIVES OUT THE ACADIANS THE PATHETIC 

EXODUS — PERSECUTION OF THE 
EXILES. 



IVING upon the basin of Minas, in Nova Scotia, 
was a company of people called the French Neu- 
trals. They were British subjects, for at this time 
Nova Scotia was an English possession, but they 
were constantly suspected of being in sympathy 
with the French and would take no oath of alle- 
giance which did not contain a proviso that they 
1^5^ were never to take up arms against France. The people 
of the community were ver>' industrious and frugal, and 
they gained wealth rapidly. Their religion held them 
together, and kept them from mingling with the Prot- 
estant English. The French and the English united in 
holding them in suspicion, feeling that they must be 
dangerous if they would give the allegiance to neither 
one nation nor the other. England was anxious to have 
Nova Scotia, or Acadia, settled with hearty British subjects, and in 
1749, Colonel Edward Cornwallis led an expedition of nearly two 
thousand five hundred persons into Chebucto harbor and settled the 
town of Halifax. The nearest settlement was that of the French, on 
the basin of Minas. A little cattle path ran through the woods for 
twenty miles, connecting the two towns. 

The garrison was removed from Louisburg, and assisted in the work 
of the young settlement at Halifax. The English imagined that their 
French neighbors were setting the Indians upon an attack upon the 
colony, and all through the winter of 1749 the people lived in fear of 




DESOLATED ACADIA. 23 1 

an attack. There was also a French settlement at the mouth of the 
St. John, and it was feared that the two colonies would unite in a move 
against the English. To avoid such danger, the English decided that 
the people of Grand Pre must be made to take a complete oath of alle- 
giance or else be removed altogether from communication with the 
French. After several years of suspicion and dissatisfaction a crisis was 
reached in 1755, when the people of Minas begged to have the arms, 
which had been taken from them, restored. There was a rumor that a 
French fleet was in the Bay of Fundy and that the Acadians intended 
to join the forces and attack the English garrison. The Governor 
ordered the French inhabitants to send delegates to Halifax for the pur- 
pose of giving the oath of allegiance. They refused to take it. It was 
therefore decided that the French inhabitants should be sent out of the 
province. An expedition was sent from Massachusetts, under the com- 
mand of Edward Winslow. The French fortifications were taken, the 
Acadian Indians disarmed, and some of the Acadians pressed into English 
service. The farmers of Grand Pre were then asked to meet the English 
in the little church at 3 o'clock in the afternoon to hear what the 
English officers had to impart to them. The old and young men, and all 
the boys of ten years of age, were required to be there. They assembled, 
unsuspiciously, to the number of four hundred and eighteen. The 
church was put under guard. Colonel Winslow told him that it was 
lys Majesty's instructions and orders that all lands and tenements, 
cattle of all kinds, and live stock of all sorts, were forfeited to the 
Crown. Only their money and household goods were allowed them. 
It was promised that families should be kept together, and that removals 
should be as easy as it could be made. The poor French farmers were 
surrounded by troops, and their prayers and protests were of no avail. 
The men were kept in the church for some time, waiting for the arrival 
of the vessels which would transport them. When they came, all the 
young unmarried men were placed upon the vessels first, then all of the 
young married men. Only the very young or the very old were left on 
shore. There was no chance for a revolt. It was many weeks before 
the rest of the transports arrived in which the families were to be placed. 
In the meantime, the unhappy women spent their days in packing up 
their goods and arranging for departure. 

Colonel Winslow grew tired of his bitter task. The weeping of the 
women worried him, and their prayers were harder to face than the fire 
of an enemy would have been. On the 21st of October the remaining 
transports arrived and the people were embarked. There were at least 



232 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

two thousand of them, possibly more. The exiles were scattered 
through a number of the colonies. Some of them returned to France. 
There was a colony planted in Louisiana, and a few returned in time. 
In Massachusetts, they were persecuted. The children were taken 
from their parents and driven from town to town. Everyone refused to 
care for them. 

No doubt the Puritans thought that they were serving the Lord in 
this persecution of the Roman Catholics. In Pennsylvania, the exiles 
were distributed among countr}- towns and provisions were made for 
them from time to time. They were always gentle under the wrongs 
which were heaped upon them. 

FOR FURTHER READING; 
History — Haliburton's "Historj* of No%'a Scotia." 
Fiction — Mrs. Williams' "The Neutral French." 
Haliburton's "The Old Judge." 
De Mille's "The Lily and the Cross." 
Poetry— Longfellow's "Evangeline." 



CHAPTER XLV. 



>^0 Jfinn nv i\t JfHb$. 



OPERATIONS AGAINST THE FRENCH IN THE NORTH — THE BATTLE AT 
BLOODY POND — THE FRENCH TAKE FORTS OSWEGO AND 

WILLIAM HENRY — THE ENGLISH RETAKE LOUISBURG 

THE BATTLE OF CARILLON — THE ENGLISH 

RETAKE OSWEGO AND CAPTURE 

FRONTENAC AND DU 

QUESNE. 





tGENERAL plan had been laid out by the English 
3 for the reduction of France in the New World. 
' The unfortunate expedition of Braddock was but 
a part of this. He was to take Fort Du Quesne 
and move on to Niagara. Governors Shirley and 
Johnson met with their forces at Albany. Gov- 
ernor Shirley was to move against Niagara, where he 
was to be joined by Braddock' s men. General John- 
son was to move against Crown Point, a French 
garrison on the southern shore of Lake Champlain. 
While Governors Shirley and Johnson were waiting 
in Albany for the arrival of the last of their troops, 
they received word of Braddock' s disaster. The men 
were inexperienced and impatient. Fighting, they 
could understand, but waiting and planning, which 
is so large a part of the success of war, was distasteful to them. 
Shirley was obliged to wait so long before making his attack upon 
Niagara that a fall storm set in. Many of his men deserted him, and 
he thought it best not to venture upon so long a march, amidst the 
inclemency of the coming weather, with a reduced force of men. He 
learned, also, that the French, under Baron Dieskau, were intending to 
attack Oswego. He strengthened that place by increasing the garrison 
there to seven hundred men. The French were anxious for Oswego, for 



234 THE STORY OK AMERICA. 

though Forts Niagara and Frontenac commanded each end of Lake 
Ontario, Oswego, upon the southern bank, held the key to the Ohio 
valley. So long as this was not in the possession of the English, the 
French traders were not likely to be interfered with. Dieskau was, indeed, 
upon the point of moving against Oswego, when he heard of General 
Johnson's intentions to move against Crown Point. Dieskau abandoned 
his first intention and hurried to meet Johnson. He had two thousand 
men, whom he took up Lake Champlain to Fort St. Frederick, at Crown 
Point. There he waited for the English. General Johnson's forces 
had been sent northward, under General Lyman, in mid-summer. They 
spent their time in building a fort on the east bank of the Hudson while 
they waited for General Johnson to arrive with the necessary stores and 
equipments. It was the 8th of August, 1755, when General Johnson 
set out to join Lyman. Ammunition, provisions and all other necessaries 
of a campaign were carried fourteen miles to Lake George. Here they 
were obliged to wait for their boats, but built a fort in the meantime. 
Here Indians from the Six Nations joined Johnson from time to time in 
small numbers. Lyman's men were engaged in strengthening the 
fort; Johnson encamped farther south on the lake, in a spot protected 
by the lake on one side and a marsh on the other. 

Dieskau left a strong party at Crown Point and marched southward, 
with the intention of taking Lyman's men, thus cutting off Johnson 
from his supplies. Could he do this, there would be nothing between 
him and the New England border. The Indians were full of objections. 
They were always reluctant about attacking forces, having a terrible 
fear of cannon. They refused to believe Dieskau when he told them 
that Lyman was entirely unprovided with them. Dieskau was, there- 
fore, obliged to march against Johnson's camp. Johnson heard of their 
approach and went to meet them. Dieskau prepared an ambush in the 
shape of a horseshoe, intending, when the English marched into it, to 
bring around one of the long lines and close about them, attacking 
from all sides. Hendrick, the chief of the Mohawks, and a detach- 
ment of Johnson's men, marched into this. Upon three sides of 
them the French and Indians rose with a yell and fell upon them. 
Bloody Pond, on the cast shore of Lake George, still marks the spot 
where those unfortunate men fell. Reinforcements covered the flight 
of the remnant of the English back to the rude barricade which 
Johnson had hastily raised and where he had placed his few cannons 
which he had brought up in boats. 

The Canadian Indians would not pursue the fight when they saw the 



THE LION OR THE LILIES. 235 

cannons. The Mohawks, on the English side, had already fled. Their 
chief, Hendricks, had been killed. The provincial soldiers, hiding 
behind their barricade of trees, picked off the French regulars until 
they were obliged to take to the woods, Johnson had been wounded 
and Lyman took command. The French, protected by the trees, crept 
up close to the breastworks, and the battle became a hand-to-hand fight. 
Lyman kept the cannons busy sending a raking fire through the swamps 
where the savages were lurking. The French were obliged to fly. 
Johnson gave orders that his men were not to pursue them. The French 
rested and began preparations for a meal, for they were half starved. 
Just then a detachment of two hundred New Hampshire troops marched 
down from Fort Lyman. These fell upon the French, and besides 
doing much execution, got their baggage and ammunition. The French 
lost about five hundred, the English between two and three hundred. 
There was the greatest rejoicing in the colonies. Johnson was 
made a baronet and given a large sum of money. In Albany, the 
people knew that they had been saved from destruction. The English 
proceeded to build a strong fort at the south end of Lake George. It 
was called Fort William Henry. That and Fort Lyman were both 
well garrisoned. The French took possession of the pass at Ticon- 
deroga and fortified it. Governor Shirley, since the death of Braddock, 
had been at the head of the English army in America. The plans 
which he laid for the coining year, 1756, were a repetition of the year 
before. The desire was to capture Fort Du Quesne and Crown Point; 
Niagara, Frontenac, and Ticonderoga were to be taken, if possible. 
The British and French governments fonnally declared war in May, 
1756. Lord Loudon was made Commander-in-chief of the English 
forces, and the Marquis De Montcalm was placed at the head of the 
French. The Englishman was indolent and unambitious. He waited 
for this thing and that, while the army in America was suffering for 
his presence. Montcalm was very different. He hastened to Canada 
with two thousand men and a large quantity of stores. Under his 
directions the French cut ofi" supplies intended for Oswego. They 
captured small English forts, took a considerable number of prisoners, 
and succeeded in winning the alliance of the Six Nations. The French 
succeeded in capturing Fort Ontario, with a slight loss to themselves. 
The English lost as prisoners of war, sixteen hundred men, including 
eighty officers, one hundred and twenty pieces of artillery, a large 
store of ammunition, and the seven armed ships and two hundred 
batteaux which were to have been sent arainst Niagara and Frontenac. 



236 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

The English, weakened by the languid and inefifectiial command jt 
Lord Loudon, continued to be inactive. The force had dwindled, by 
sickness, from seven to four thousand. Montcalm returned to Montreal 
for the winter. The English plans for the next year were to confine 
hostilities to a single expedition. This was to be against Louisburg, 
which the English had taken once before so gallantly. Four thousand 
more men were raised in the colonies. The troops met at Halifax and 
were joined by Loudon with six thousand regulars, but when Loudon 
learned that Louisburg was well garrisoned, he concluded to put off an 
attack for a year and returned to New York. When Montcalm heard 
of this, he made up his mind to move against Fort Willian Henry. 
This fort had been badly situated. Some of the hills by it commanded 
it absolutely, and around it were marshes and low-lying ground. 
Montcalm, with fifty-five hundred Canadians and regulars, and sixteen 
hundred Indians, made his way from Ticonderoga across the portage to 
the upper part of Lake George. Here he divided his men. Part were 
sent in batteaux and canoes down the lake with all the baggage, and 
twenty-eight hundred followed the Indian's trail by the side of the lake. 
These last mentioned were under the command of De Levis. Montcalm 
landed on the west side of the lake, about two miles from the fort, and 
demanded its surrender. Colonel Monroe, who was in command, 
promptly refused, thinking that he could rely on the assistance of 
General Webb's men at Fort Lyman, fifteen miles below. But Webb 
had the stupidity to advise Monroe to surrender, since he could give no 
aid to him unless General Johnson arrived with reinforcements. The 
French intercepted this letter, learned the nature of the men they had 
to deal with, and sent the messenger on his way. 

General Johnson did arrive with reinforcements, but Webb would 
not permit him to give the assistance to poor Monroe, although the 
common soldiery were wild for action, and outraged at the meanness 
which left him to his fate. The siege lasted for six days and Monroe 
was obliged to surrender. Montcalm made liberal terms but the Indians 
had been inflamed with liquor and their thirst for blood aroused. 
Montcalm liad promised that the troops should be marched to Fort 
Lyman safely. He tried to keep his word, but the Indians broke from 
all control and fell upon the Englishmen. In their panic the English 
even fled to the French for protection. It has never ceased to be a 
subject for dispute among the friends and enemies of Montcalm, as to 
whether he inspired the Indians in this treachery or not. Montcalm 
burned Fort William Henrv and returned to Canada. 



THE LION OR THE LILIES. 237 

The Indian depredations continued all along the English frontier as 
far as the valley of the Shenandoah. Oswego, the key of the Ohio valley 
and the great lakes, had been lost. It is true that the English held 
Acadia, but the silent and desolated villages were not a proud possession. 
Fortunately, at this time, a man who was always a friend of the 
American colonies came to their relief. It was William Pitt, the 
English statesman. At this time he was Secretary of State, and he 
took vigorous measures for sending armies, ammunition and a general 
equipment from England. He also called for a large number of 
colonial soldiers. All the New England men needed was encourage- 
ment and example, and they responded to the call with enthusiasm. 
Admiral Boscawen and Sir Jeffrey Amherst were placed in command of 
the forces which were called to attack Louisburg. On June 2, 1758, 
these forces arrived at Louisburg, and a well-planned assault was made. 
The French surrendered and the English took six thousand prisoners. 
This was very important to the English, for there now stood nothing 
between Louisburg and Quebec, the strongest and most impregnable of 
the Canadian cities. New England began to take courage once more, 
and looked to Brigadier-General Wolfe, who played an important part 
in the engagement, for a leadership of more power. Abercrombie, 
who had taken the place of the ineffective Loudon, was aiming at the 
capture of Ticonderoga. With him was Lord Howe, a general of 
bravery and dash, trusted by his officers and beloved by his men. 

On the 5th of July, Abercrombie came up Lake George with fifteen 
thousand troops, both regulars and provincials, in a fleet of batteaux. 
The scarlet uniforms of his English regulars, the plaids of his Highland 
troops, and the motley garb of his provincials making a picturesque 
spectacle. The French had been sent to keep the English from landing. 
One body of them was driven back, the other took to the woods, and 
wandering there bewildered, encountered a body of horsemen, who were 
also lost. In the engagement which followed, nearly all of the French 
(three hundred and fifteen) were killed. The English lost heavily also, 
and Lord Howe was shot. His loss was a greater disaster to the 
English than twice the number of the French slain would have been. 
On the 8th, a regular attack was made upon Carillon. Abercrombie 
sent his regulars again and again to the deadly abatis. The huge 
trunks and roots of the trees afforded the best protection in the world 
for the French. Lord Abercrombie, unused to this method of defence, 
did not sufficiently value its strength. 

At sunset the English gave the fight up as hopeless and withdrew to 



238 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

the lake. The discouraged men encamped upon the ruins of Fort 
William Henry, and counting their numbers, found that they had lost 
over two thousand. Meanwhile, Bradstreet, with three thousand men, 
had once more secured Oswego to the English. He then rode down the 
lake to Frontenac and captured its garrison, and then returned to 
Albany to join the men who remained. The third expedition which 
had been sent for the recovery of Fort Du Quesne, under General Forbes, 
was successful. Forbes did not march by the road which Braddock 
had followed, but started from Bedford, Massachusetts. With Forbes 
was Colonel Washington and his Virginian troops. A great deal of 
time was wasted in building bridges and leveling woods after the 
manner of European warfare, which the commander followed and 
Washington protested against. The march was so long that the 
provisions were exhausted, and it was feared that the expedition would 
have to return without having accomplished anything. The French 
did not feel strong enough to venture resistance, and they set fire to their 
magazine. So the English conquered almost in spite of themselves. 
The key to the lakes and the Ohio valley was once more in their 
possession. A terrible disaster befell the army a few days later, when 
Grant's detachment of men, consisting largely of Highlanders, were 
surprised by seven or eight hundred Frenchmen, and nearly all killed. 
Pitt continued to send supplies and men over to America. By the 6th 
of Jul}-, the English were before Niagara. The general first in 
command was killed by the carelessness of one of his soldiers, and Sir 
William Johnson took his place. The French knew that their garrison 
was too small to hold against the besieging force, and sent to Detroit 
and Presque Isle for reinforcements. These the English met and 
defeated in a spirited engagement. When the French at the fort were 
convinced of this disaster, they surrendered. Meanwhile, Amherst had 
brought eleven thousand men to awe the little garrison of Ticonderoga. 
The French did not attempt resistance, but blew up the magazine and 
retreated northward. Amherst went on cautioush- to Crown Point, 
only to find that the French had retreated still farther north. The rest 
of the year was employed by Amherst in building those massive works 
on Crown Point, which are still the wonder of tourists. Rogers was 
sent with his rangers against the Indians, but the great interest of the 
English campaign lay with General Wolfe. 

FOR FURTHHR RKADING: 
Fiction — James' "Ticonderoga." 

Cooper's "Last of the Mohicans." 
POETRV— Wlnttier's "lY-iitucket." ' 

Wliittier's "St. Johu." 



CHAPTER XLVI. 



1^0 ^^11^$ uf §hv^. 



THE EXPEDITION AGAIKST QUEBEC — THE NIGHT ATTACK AND THE 

FIGHT ON THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM THE DEATH OF 

MONTCALM AND WOLFE — NEW ORLEANS 
AND THE MISSISSIPPI VALLEY 
'^'O ' GIVEN TO SPAIN. 

'HOUGH Wolfe was a man of much strength of 
spirit, he suffered constantly from bodily weak- 
ness. Nothing but a fierce determination to 
restore the honor of the English colonies could 
have kept him up through those trying expedi- 
tions. He rested in England for a time after 
the taking of Louisburg, and then returned to prepare 
for the capture of Quebec, suffering, meantime, from a 
deep melancholy and a presentment of death. At the 
close of June, 1759, the English forces left Louisburg 
and encamped on the Isle d' Orleans, in the St. Law- 
rence, a little below Quebec. A detachment was put on 
the promontory of Point Levi, on the southern shore of 
the river, and still nearer the city. Montcalm learned 
of their coming, and made preparations for defence. 
Rocky bluffs rose straight up from the St. Lawrence, and for years these 
natural fortifications had been considered impregnable. Montcalm had 
about three thousand men, in fortified camps, protecting the city. Across 
the St. Lawrence was a dam, with vessels sunk behind it and barges in 
front. The St. Lawrence, on the south side of the city, was about a 
mile wide, and at that place was a swift-flowing river. Montcalm's 
forces were much larger than Wolfe's, and the English soldiers were 
inclined to the belief that an attempt against such forces and fortifica- 
tions was useless. Wolfe did not depend upon strength, but on strategy. 
An attack was made on the French camp near the falls of Montmorenci. 
The Englishmen made a bold attack, but in the end were forced to take 




240 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

to their boats and retreat. The expedition was a sorr}' failure, and at 
least five hundred men were lost by the English. 

The siege was kept up for another month. Little effect was made 
upon the upper town, but the lower one was almost destroyed. Wolfe was 
sick and melancholy. The inaction was dispiriting to the troops. 
What they desired was to force ^Montcalm to meet them on open field. 
At length Wolfe, lying ill in his tent, hit upon a plan which made him 
immortal. In the time which they had lingered there, Wolfe had 
become well acquainted with the country, for his men had reconnoitred 
faithfully. Therefore, on the night of the twelfth, a moonless night, 
Wolfe rose from his bed and led sixteen hundred of his men. They 
dropped silently down the river with the current, and landed beneath the 
overhanging heights above the city. Up these wooded bluffs were steep 
paths, and fourteen volunteers led the way while the sixteen hundred 
men followed. Once they were challenged by a sentinel. A High- 
lander replied, in the French tongue, that they brought provisions. 
There was no other interruption. It was the Highland boys in their 
plaids that sprang ashore first. They were used to mountain climbing, 
and rushed up the steep. The little guard at the head of the path was 
soon overpowered. When the morning light broke, Quebec was 
astonished to see an English army on the Plains of Abraham, the great 
table land behind the city. Montcalm hurried thither with twenty-five 
hundred men. 

He had been on the other side of the St. Lawrence river, and had to 
cross the bridge of boats and pass through the city before he reached 
the Plains. The English had already begun to intrench themselves. 
The French had no time for preparations, and one gun was all they 
had been able to drag after them. The Canadians crouched in the corn- 
fields and began the attack, and the French regulars, in three divisions, 
moved upon the centre and the flanks of the English. The F'rench 
kept up a steady fire, but the English did not level their guns until 
their enemies were within a few feet. Then, of course, the fire was 
deadly, and the English followed it up by a hand-to-hand attack. The 
Frenchmen fell into disordered rout. 

Wolfe was wounded. He had one ball in his side, and another in 
his breast. Some one carried him to the rear and laid him on the grass, 
where he lay almost unconscious, but when a man cried, ' 'See how they 
run!" Wolfe raised himself suddenly and asked, "Who run?" When 
he heard it was the enemy, he gave his last orders: 

"Tell Colonel Burton to march Welb's regiment down the St. 



THE PATHS OF GLORY. 



241 



Lawrence river and cut off their retreat from the bridge." Then he 
died peacefully. Montcalm was also killed, and was buried in a cavity 
of the earth made by the bursting of a bombshell. It was the burial 
he had asked for. On the i8th of September, 1759, the British took 
possession of Quebec, the French withdrawing their troops to Montreal. 
With the opening of the river in the spring, De Levis came down 
from Montreal with an army of seven thousand men. The English 
moved out with soldierly spirit, and a second battle was fought upon 
the Plains of Abraham. The English were worsted, and the French 
began a siege. Both forces waited in quiet for some time, expecting 
reinforcements. They came to the English first, and De Levis threw 
his guns into the river and retreated. On the 8th of September the 
city surrendered. In the terms of capitulation were included Detroit, 
Michelimackinac and all the French forts farther west. The French 
fleet, which arrived upon the coast soon after, was entirely destroyed 
by the British squadron. Canada, Nova Scotia and Cape Breton now 
belonged to Great Britain. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — "VVarburton's "Conquest of Canada." 
Fiction— Hall's "Twice Taken.'" 
Tiffany's "Brandon." 




QUEBEC. 



CHAPTER XLVII. 



J[ ^hm %t^v JftWl^. 



PONTIAC, CHIEF OF THE OTTAWAS — ARRIVAL OF ROGERS' MEN AT 

DETROIT — PONTIAC' S CONSPIRACY — BEGINNING OF 

WAR — THE SIEGE OF DETROIT — THE 

BATTLE OF BLOODY 

BRIDGE. 



HE chief of the Ottawas, Pontiac, claimed all 
the land upon the southern and western sides of 
Lake Erie. He is said to have commanded his 
Indians with great skill at the time of Braddock's 
defeat. In 1746, he and his warriors defended 
the French with bravery, against the Northern 
Indians. Practically, he was the principal chief of three 
great tribes, the Objibcwas, the Ottawas, and the Potta- 
watomies. At the time of which we write he v/as a 
little past the prime of life, but was still one of the most 
intelligent and formidable men of his race. He was 
haughty and eloquent, not lacking in statesmanlike quali- 
ties, nor in a certain poetic imagination. 

When the English detachment was sent to take pos- 
session of Detroit, under Major Rogers, Pontiac came in 
person to inquire what right he had to pass through the country. He 
was told of the conquest of Canada and that the party were on the way to 
accept the surrender of Detroit. Pontiac retired to turn the matter 
over in his mind for the night, and on the following day made a speech 
in which he affirmed his friendliness towards the English and prom- 
ised that they should be unmolested. That he was sincere in his pro- 
testations of friendship is proved by the fact that when Rogers and his 
famous rangers arrived at the Detroit river, Pontiac persuaded four 
hundred Detroit Indians, who were lying there in ambush for them, to 
disperse. Had he not done so, this would have been the last adventure 




A BLOW FOR LIBERTY. 243 

of that picturesque band of men whose exploits have been the delight 
of all American boys. 

But the English were never so attractive to the Indians as were the 
French, and after a time the grim old savage, Pontiac, began to long 
for his more entertaining friends, who had so long lived near him in 
good fellowship. He could not understand why a large garrison of 
Frenchmen should lay down their arms and surrender to a handful of 
English rangers, and he listened with satisfaction to the tales which the 
French poured into his ears. They said that the great French Father 
had been asleep, but that he would awaken now and avenge the wrongs 
of his children. Pontiac, solitary and gloomy, pondered upon this in 
the depths of the Michigan forests, and laid plans for driving the Eng- 
lish from the countr}'. This was to be done by attacking all the forts 
in a single day, as well as all the frontier settlements. He had heard 
that a large French fleet was on its way down the St. Lawrence, 
and he hoped to win the good will of the commander. With him, he 
would march upon the older English settlements and drive the people 
back across the Atlantic. Ambassadors were sped to the several 
Indian nations with a red-stained tomahawk and the wampum war belt. 
The Senecas, Algonquins, Wyandots and some southern tribes became 
allies of Pontiac. Each tribe was to dispose of the garrison nearest it 
and then turn upon the adjacent settlements. On April 27, 1763, 
Pontiac called a great council on the river Ecorces and addressed his 
warriors there. He recounted all the wrongs the Indians had suflfered 
at the hands of the English, and he told of a tradition that a Delaware 
Indian had been allowed to enter the presence of the Great Spirit, who 
told him that his race must return to the customs and weapons of their 
ancestors, give up the whisky which the white men had taught them 
to use, and throw away the implements with which he had tried to 
chain them to the dull drudgery of civilization. Pontiac assured his 
friends that the French were coming down the St. Lawrence with a 
large fleet of soldiers who would stand by them and be their friends. 
The insurrection was to be on the 7th of May, and Pontiac was to lead 
the attack on Detroit. 

On the ist he visited the fort with forty warriors, and danced the 
the dance of peace before them. He retired to finish his plans of war. 
He and one hundred chiefs were to enter the fort for the purpose of 
holding a council with the commander. Pontiac was to make a speech, 
and when he presented the wampum belt wrong end foremost, it was to 
be the signal for the Indians to fall upon the officers and kill them. 



244 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Tlie Indians waiting outside about the streets were to do the same 
deadly work among the soldiers and citizens. The plans were well 
laid, but on the 5th, one of the English women visiting in Ottawa vil- 
lage to make purchases of maple sugar and venison, saw many warriors 
cutting off the barrels of their guns with files. She wondered why they 
could wish the barrels of their guns to be made shorter. There was 
only one conclusion; they wished to hide them under the folds of 
their blankets. One of the beautiful young Indian girls who were in 
the habit of visiting the fort left with so much reluctance on the night 
before the attack that she was questioned until she confessed the details 
of the plot. Pontiac made her suffer severely afterward for this 
treachery to her race. 

The force of Pontiac about Detroit was from six hundred to two 
thousand. The English garrison consisted of one hundred and twenty 
men. The fort was a square enclosed by a palisade twenty feet high. 
At each corner was a wooden bastion, with a few light pieces of artil- 
lery, and over the gateways were block-houses. Two armed schooners 
were anchored in the river. 

Pontiac came at the appointed time and entered the gate with his 
warriors. He saw at once that his plans had been discovered. "Why 
do I see so many of my father's young men standing in the street with 
their guns?" he asked. Gladwyn, who was commanding, replied, 
lightly, that they had been out for exercise. Pontiac began his speech, 
doubtless turning over in his mind the possibility of an attack even 
now. Once he lifted the wampum belt, Gladwyn replied with a 
slight movement of his hand. There was a rattle of arms at the door 
and the roll of a drum. Pontiac sat down in dismayed silence. The 
Indians were finally conducted to the gate by the soldiers, and ushered, 
out in sullen silence. 

Pontiac and three chiefs came back the next day with a calumet and 
told Gladwyn that evil birds had sung lies in his ear. The following 
day he came with a large crowd of warriors, to find the gates barred. 
He was told that he alone would be allowed to enter. The war-whoop 
which his followers gave was the declaration of hostilities. Some of them 
run to the defenceless English houses outside the fort, killed the inhabi- 
tants, and shook their bloody scalps at the soldiers. Pontiac' s village 
was hastily moved across the river to the mouth of the creek we now 
know as Bloody Run, a mile and a half north of the fort. On the loth 
he began a regular siege, fighting in the usual savage manner, behind 
barns and fences, keeping well out of reach of return fire. Two Scotch 



A BLOW FOR LIBERTY. 245 

olEcers responded to Pontiac's wish to hold a council with the Eng- 
lish. Both were detained as prisoners and one was murdered. 

The Wyandots joined Pontiac and the siege was renewed with great 
vigor. It had taken Gladwyn some time to realize the extent of the 
conspiracy. But now he removed everything about the fort which 
could obstruct the sweep of his guns. He carefully economized the 
provisions, and dug wells in the fort. These wells were not alone 
needed to provide against thirst, but to extinguish the fires as well, for 
one of the chief methods of Indian warfare was to tip the arrows with 
burning tow. Under cover of darkness the friendly Indians across the 
shore brought over supplies. Pontiac's soldiers had not been prepared 
for sustained conflict, and before long were short of provisions. The 
old chief was not lacking in dignified ideas of war and would not permit 
his men to prey upon the Canadian farms. He made a large number 
of promissory notes upon birch bark, which were to be exchanged for 
provisions. After his disastrous war had closed it is said that he 
redeemed all of these notes. 

Reinforcements were on their way up Lake Erie for Gladwyn. He 
knew of this, and sent one of his schooners to hasten their approach, 
but the schooner missed them, and they continued to slowly creep up 
the coast, not knowing of the siege, and were captured by a band of 
Wyandots, who killed or took as prisoners sixty men. Only two boats 
escaped. 

The Indians hid in the boats which they had captured and forced 
the crew to sail into the harbor. The Indians hoped to enter the fort 
by this strategy. At the fort they had watched the approach of the 
boats with great delight, and the disappointment when they were seen 
to be laden with Indians, was almost unbearable. The two boats which 
escaped hastened to Niagara and told their stor>'. An expedition for 
relief was formed. The Indians made an attempt to capture this also, 
but it reached the fort in safety. 

The approaches to the fort were guarded by the schooners, of which 
the Indians stood in great fear. They made several attempts to 
destroy them with fire-rafts, but were not successful. The Wyandots 
and Pottawatomies exchanged prisoners with Gladwyn and sued for 
peace, but the Ottawas and Ojibewas kept up the conflict. On the 29th 
of July a reinforcement of two hundred and eighty men reached 
Detroit, and revived the spirits of the exhausted garrison. They now 
felt strong enough to march out from the fort and openly attack the 
Indian camp. But the Indian never could be made to fight in fair field. 



246 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

They hid behind every tree and clump of bushes. Dalzell, who led 
the expedition, could find no enemy, and after going as far as the deep- 
ening twilight would permit, turned his men' back toward the fort. 
Then every bush, tree and hill became alive with savages who had 
lain in ambush. Dalzell was killed. Rogers took possession of a house 
and defended some of his men there. The cellar of the house was 
crowded with women and children, and upon the trap-door, which 
covered it, stood an old man who needed all his little strength and his 
eloquence to keep the soldiers from rushing, in their terror, into the 
cellar. Rogers held out until the batteaux, which had gone down the 
river with the killed and wounded, returned. This was called the battle 
of Bloody Bridge. In it the English lost fifty-nine men and the Indians 
about twenty. The great desire of the Indians was to keep supplies 
from reaching the fort. One of the schooners returning to the fort 
from Niagara was attacked in the Detroit river by a large number of 
Indians, who swam silently through the water with knives in their 
teeth. The crew fought them with spears and hatchets, and succeeded in 
saving the boats from capture, but the captain was killed and several 
men badly wounded. The boat would have been lost, had not the 
mate given an order that the magazines should be fired. The Indians 
understood enough English to take warning. The next expedition 
which was sent to the fort from Niagara was overtaken by a storm. 
Seventy men were lost, besides all the store of ammunition. 

The Ottawas finally sued for peace, and Pontiac raised the siege in 
October and returned to his melancholy forest. That portion of the 
war which he superintended himself had not been successful, but his 
allies had been more fortunate. At almost every fort in that country 
the work of destruction had been successfully carried out. Forts 
Sandusky, St. Joseph and Quatanoir, on the Wabash, were all captured, 
and in most cases the garrison were murdered. At jNIichelimackinac, a 
very crafty plan was laid for the taking of the fort. The Indians invited 
the officers to witness a game of ball on the plain in front of the fort. 
From early morning till noon the soldiers looked on, well pleased 
with the sport. Finally the ball was thrown near the gate of the fort. 
The Indians made a rush for it, seized the two officers, who were stand- 
ing near, and bound them, while the savages poured into the fort. 
Inside were the squaws, with weapons concealed under their blankets. 
These the men seized and fell upon the soldiers. Seventeen were killed 
instantly, and six were tortured to death. The English traders were 
led into captivity. The French, quietly looking on, were not touched. 



A BLOW FOR LIBERTY 247 

At Prasqui, near the present town of Erie, Pennsylvania, the fort was 
was besieged for two days and a half Here the Indians mined the fort 
and the English were obliged to surrender. They were taken as pris- 
oners to Pontiac's camp. At Fort Le Boeuf, a block-house, in which the 
garrison had taken refuge, was set on fire, and the garrison of fourteen 
men dug a hole in the ground in the rear and crept stealthily into the 
forest, while the Indians stood dancing around in the belief that they 
were burning to death. The men started for Fort Pitt, but some of 
them died of hunger by the way. At Fort Venango, on the Alle- 
ghany, the garrison was butchered and Lieutenant Gordon slowly 
tortured to death. Fort Pitt itself was well fortified. It had a g^ood 
supply of water and provisions, and the attack was not successful. A 
command was sent out from Philadelphia, under Colonel Henry Boquet, 
to strengthen the garrison at Fort Pitt. He had five hundred men with 
him, mostly Highlanders. These marched through a desolate tract of 
country at the western part of Pennsylvania, Many settlements there 
had been laid waste and the inhabitants murdered. A fierce attack 
was made on him near the stream called Brush river, where the men 
had encamped. His little army was entirely surrounded, and his 
horses, unused to the blood-curdling shrieks of tHe Indians, were 
unmanageable. The Scotchmen fought firmly, rather than bravely, 
and their very lack of excitement won them the victor}'. The fight 
was resumed the next day at the first break of light. The Scotchmen 
were placed at a terrible disadvantage. They stood in an open space 
in a compact mass. The Indians were dispersed through the woods 
and fought from behind trees. Boquet feigned retreat. The Indians 
supposed that their prey was about to escape, and made a furious 
attack. This was exactly what Boquet desired. In a short time 
the Indians were flying before the Scotchmen. The march was 
resumed, and the force arrived at Fort Pitt, having lost eight officers and 
one hundred and fifteen men. 

In a short time general peace was made, but for many months after 
the people in the frontier villages lived in terror of their lives. Two 
thousand whites were killed. Several costly expeditions had been 
entirely destroyed. Pontiac, still revengeful, tried to start another con- 
spiracy, but failed. He was murdered in 1769 by a Kaskaskia Indian, 
on the spot where St. Louis now stands. 

FOR FURTHER READING; 
History — Parkraan's "Conspiracy of Pontiac." 
Drama — A. Macomb's "Pontiac." 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

THE STAMP ACT — CONDITION OK THE COLONIES — THE OPPOSITION 
TO TAXATION — REPEAL OF THE STAMP ACT — REFUSAL OF 
THE ASSEMBLY TO PROVIDE FOR THE 
TROOPS SENT OVER BY 
ENGLAND. 



OR a time after the close of the war a pleasant 
tranquility reigned in the colonies. George 
Washington, writing to a friend in England, 
confessed there was really nothing to sa}-. 
"Happy the people whose annals are tiresome," 
says Montesquieu. For a time it seemed as if 
life in New England was to resolve itself into this 
fortunate monotony. But the young King George III, 
in England, had ideas which brought this tranquility to 
an end. He believed that the colonies were rich 
enough to help him in carrying out one of his famous 
schemes. He wished to build a great palace which 
should rival the splendor of Versailles. To do this, it was 
evident that a prodigious sum of money was necessary. 
There was no easier way to raise it than by taxing the American 
colonies. In 1763 a bill was introduced in Parliament which tested the 
whole question of the possible revenue to be derived from that source. It 
required that stamps var>'ing in price, none of them less than one shilling, 
should be placed upon the records of all commercial transactions. An 
amendment to the sugar act was also introduced. The duty on foreign 
molasses was changed from six pence a gallon to three pence, and new 
duties were imposed on coffee, pimento. East India goods, and wines 
from Madeira and the western islands. George III was not mistaken 
in thinking that there had been a rapid increase of wealth in the 
American colonies. Between the years 1765 and 1775 two-thirds of 




C^SAR HAD HIS BRUTUS. 249 

the foreign commerce of Great Britain was that which she conducted 
with America. Between 1700 and 1760 the value of property in 
England increased fifty per cent. William Pitt claimed that this was 
due wholly to the American colonies, and said that Great Britain reaped 
a profit of two millions a year from them. At this time there were 
three millions of people in America, and these purchased almost every 
manufactured article from Great Britain, exporting, in return, fish, 
tobacco, indigo, rice and naval stores. England sent goods amounting 
to two million pounds annually to New York and Pennsylvania alone. 

But to the indignant Americans who turned the stamp act over in 
their assemblies, there seemed to be no reason why they should be 
imposed upon simply because they were prosperous. That peculiar form 
of lawlessness which was so much stronger and more dignified than law, 
and which the people of New England had shown before, was 
thoroughly roused now. Samuel Adams, the leader of the popular 
party in Boston, inflamed the people by his indignant eloquence. "If 
our trade may be taxed, why not our lands?" said he. "Why not the 
produce of our lands, and, in short, ever^'thing we possess or make use 
of? If taxes are laid upon us in any shape, without our having a legal 
representative where they are laid, are we not reduced from the 
character of subjects to the miserable state of tributary- slaves?" Such 
speeches, and James Otis' passionate pamphlet on the rights of the 
colonies, filled every American with courage and a determination to 
resist. Quietly, and to an extent secretly, every man in America armed 
himself The speeches of the assemblies should have fairly warned the 
English ministers, but they were anxious to gratify the caprice of their 
half-mad King. A Continental Congress met at New York, in which 
there were delegates from the nine assemblies to consider what had best 
be done. Most of the assemblies had already met in the province and 
had made their individual protests. In Virginia, Patrick Henry had 
drawn up his famous resolutions denouncing the right of the mother 
country to tax her colonies. These were warmly opposed, and Henr>-, 
rising in the house, cried, ' 'Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I his Crom- 
well, George HI" — "treason!" cried the men from ever}- part of the 
house — "may profit by their example," continued Henr>', firmly. "If 
this be treason, make the most of it!" 

The Continental Congress at New York was composed of the most 
distinguished men in the colonies. On the roll were the names of many 
men who, in the end, sided with the Crown. Among them was 
General Timothy Ruggles, of Massachusetts who was president of the 



250 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Congress. He and several others were staunch Tories, The resohi- 
tions were not impertinent, nor even passionate. They were dignified, 
moderate, and absohitely firm. The thirteen articles of these resolu- 
tions had a single purpose — a protest against taxation. Meanwhile, 
the piles of stamp paper which were to produce this new revenue 
arrived in the different sea-ports. The collectors who brought the 
stamps were hung in effigy and waited on by mobs. Most of them 
were compelled to resign. In Boston, the mob entered the house of 
Oliver, the agent, and broke his windows. Then they gathered at the 
house of his brother-in-law. Governor Hutchinson, one of the richest 
men in Boston, and threw everything into the street. The militia was 
called out to arrest the ringleaders, which they made pretense of doing, 
but released them willingly enough, when they were ordered to do so 
by the mob. The newspapers were filled with letters of protest from 
private citizens. The opposition was led chiefly by the "Sons of 
Liberty," an association in New York. 

The royal governors and the officers under them were very bitter. 
Lieutenant Cole, of New York, swore that he would cram the stamps 
down their throats with the sword. The distributor of the stamps in 
Maryland was obliged to fly to New York, and was finally visited by a 
delegation from the Sons of Liberty, and forced to take an oath to the 
effect that he would not resume the duties of his office. In South 
Carolina, the stamp act was publicly burnt, the bells of Charleston 
were tolled, and the flags of the ships in the harbor were at half-mast. 
Nor was it alone the young men, fond of novelty, who conducted these 
proceedings. The older and more dignified took part in them with 
equal enthusiasm. The colonies also took more radical and business- 
like methods of resistance. They agreed among themselves not to 
import English goods, and orders which had gone forward were 
countermanded. The retail dealers agreed neither to buy nor sell such 
goods as were brought into the country. A fair was opened in New 
York devoted to domestic manufactures. That the growth of wool 
might not be interfered with, it was determined that no lambs might be 
used as food. No mourning goods were manufactured in America and 
it was agreed that they should not be purchased. Some of the ship- 
masters bringing them over were forced to return with their cargo. 

In England there was a new ministry — a ministry which had not 
yet made up its mind what its attitude should be toward the colonies. 
For the first time in a year, William Pitt appeared in the House. His 
speech upon the situation was most sarcastic. He said that Americans 



aS;SAR HAD HIS BRUTUS. 25 1 

were the sons, not the bastards, of England, and closed his speech with 
the celebrated words: "The honorable gentleman tells us that America 
is obstinate; America is almost in open rebellion. Sir, I rejoice that 
America has resisted. Three millions of people, so dead to all the 
feelings of liberty as voluntarily to submit to be slaves, would have 
been fit instruments to make slaves of all the rest. ' ' Benjamin Franklin 
was present, and was examined thoroughly on the question. The 
stamp act was repealed. Throughout the colonies this was received 
with the greatest enthusiasm. Joy bells were rung in the churches, 
liberty poles raised, and pictures of Conway and Barre hung in Faneuil 
Hall. Conway was the man who had brought in the resolution for the 
repeal of the act. Barre was the man, who, when the stamp act was 
passing through Parliament, replied to the remark that the colonies had 
been planted by the care of England, with this indignant speech: 
"They planted by your care! No, your oppressions planted them in 
America. They nourished up by your indulgence! They grew by 
your neglect of them. As soon as you began to care about them, that 
care was exercised in sending persons to rule them in one department, 
and another who were perhaps the deputies of deputies to some member 
of this house, sent to spy out their liberties, to misrepresent their 
actions and to prey upon them; men whose behavior on many occasions 
has caused the blood of those Sons of Liberty to recoil within them!" 
Statues of George III and Pitt were erected in Virginia and Maryland. 
In New York, statues of the King and Pitt were also erected and liberty 
poles raised, at the bases of which hogsheads of punch were drank. 

But the people had rejoiced too soon. The habits of loyalty was 
still strong in them, and they desired to have cordial relations with the 
home government. They had taken the repeal of the stamp act for 
more than it really meant. The sugar act was not modified, and still 
collected a revenue. It was still required of the colonies that they 
should provide fire, candles, vinegar, salt, bedding, utensils for cooking, 
beer, cider and wine for all the troops who might be sent to America. 
Again the ministry of England had changed, and now had at its head a 
man who was determined to tax the colonies as he pleased. He insisted 
that military garrisons should be kept up in all the large colonial 
towns, and that they should be supported by colonial taxation. In 
June of 1768, Sir Henry Moore, the Governor of New York, sent a 
message to the assembly, asking them to make provisions for the 
troops, then on their way to the colony. The assembly refused. They 
were willing, they said, to bear a share in the support of the troops on 



252 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



their way through the province, as they had always done, of their own 
free will. But they would contribute nothing to the quartering of 
troops in the colony. Parliament ordered that all the legislative rights 
of New York should be stopped until this command had been complied 
with. The sympathy of all the colonies was with New York. At 
this time port duties were levied on wine, wools and fruit, if shipped 
direct from Spain and Portugal, and upon glass, paper, lead, colors and 
tea. This revenue was to be used for the support of the civil officers 
of the colonies. It will be remembered that the assemblies had always 
insisted upon the right to care for the ro}-al governors in the way they 
considered best, and that the sum given to the Governor annually, 
depended partly upon the prosperity of the province, and partly upon 
the benefit which the Governor had actually been during the year. A 
letter of supplication was promptly sent to the King. The reply was 
a letter from the Secretary of State of England, to the General Court 
of Massachusetts, commanding them to withdraw the resolution which 
gave birth to the letter. If they refused, the government was to dissolve 
the court. The assemblies of the other colonies received word that they 
would also be dissolved if they were disobedient. A letter so insulting 
and patronizing showed the absolute ignorance which England was in 
regarding the character of the American men with whom they had to 
deal. 

Four regiments of soldiers were then quartered in the town of 
Boston. Every man was curious to know why they were there. 
Americans could not grasp the idea of a standing army. They believed 
that the soldiers were there for no reason but to menace the community. 
The idea entertained in England, that it was a compliment to have 
troops stationed at a town, could not be understood by them. This 
Puritan town, forced by law into habits which were almost ascetic, and 
ruled by a government which was largely religious, could not tolerate 
the gayety, not to say debauchery, of the soldiers. The town had 
refused to prepare quarters for them. At a town meeting it was 
requested that every inhabitant should provide himself with fire-arms 
for sudden danger, in the case of a war with France. There was, as 
everyone knew, no likelihood of a war with France, but the fiction was 
sustained, and every man obeyed the bidding. When the troops arrived, 
one regiment was quartered in Faneuil Hall, another in the town hall, 
and one encamped on the Common. The Irish regiments, which arrived, 
a few days later, were added to those on the Common. A fleet of 
eighty men-of-war, having in all over one hundred and eighty guns, was 



C^SAR HAD HIS BRUTUS. 253 

anchored oflf the town. It was with difficulty that the wisest among 
the Bostonians prevented an outbreak. The people were not only- 
willing to fight, but they were anxious to do so. 

The very boys shared the popular discontent. There had been quite 
a quarrel between them and the soldiers, for the soldiers were in the 
habit of destroying the snow-slides which the boys had prepared for 
their sleds. The boys appealed in vain to the captain, and finally went 
to the British general. He said: "Have your fathers been teaching 
rebellion, and sent you here to exhibit it?" "Nobody sent us here," 
said one of the boys. "We have never injured nor insulted your troops, 
but they have been spoiling our snow-slides so that we cannot use them 
any more. We complained, and they called us young rebels and told us 
to help ourselves, if we could. We told the captains of this and they 
laughed at us. Yesterday our slides were destroyed once more, and we 
will bear it no longer." The general ordered the damage repaired and 
told General Gage about the matter, who said that it was impossible to 
beat the notion of liberty out of people who had it planted in them 
from childhood. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
Biography — Loring's "The Hundred Boston Orators." 
Tudor's "Life of Otis." 
Wells' "Life of Samuel Adams." 
Sparks' "Franklin." 
Adams' "Life of John Adams." 
Wirt's "Patrick Henry." 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

3 l|n$lnn ¥0H-!®nnfear$. 



TROUBLE IN BOSTON — "THE BOSTON MASSACRE" — THE TEA TAX- 
ATTITUDE OF GOVERNOR HUTCHINSON — THE BOSTON 
"TEA party" — THE BOSTON 
PORT BILL. 



(Ti 






j.x^ft-^ RRITATION in Boston reached its height on 
^ jNIarch 3, 1770. For a long time there had been 
many quarrels among the common soldiery and 
the Boston seamen. Probably there was little 
choice between the ignorance and brutality of 
both parties, but the popular sympathies were, of 
course, with the Americans. On the evening of the 3d, 
some soldiers had agreed to hold a sort of free fight with 
a company of rope-makers. In the rough hand-to-hand 
fiofht several men on both sides were wounded. On the 
following night an attempt was made to renew the 
squabble, and it was suppressed with some difficulty. 
The soldiers were resentful and naturally had a strong 
partisan feeling. On the night of March 5th, two 
young men tried to pass a sentinel at the foot of Coruhill. The senti- 
nel told them that they could not pass. A struggle followed and a 
crowd gathered. The sentinel was snow-balled. A file of troops was 
sent out to defend the sentr)-, and succeeded in getting him into the 
barracks safely. But the blood of the crowd was up. The actual indig- 
nities which had been heaped upon them made them anxious for 
revenge, and they can hardly be criticised if their methods were petty. 
Another sentinel was espied, who had, it was said, knocked down a 
Boston boy a few days before. The ill-nature of the mob was turned 
against him. He tried to enter the building and escape, but found the 
door locked, and was forced to call for the main guard. Six men were 
sent to his relief Captain Preston, the officer of the day, was at an 




THE BOSTON TEA-DRINKERS. 255 

entertainment in the city. A messenger was dispatched for him. The 
mob grew every minute, and the bells throughout the city were set 
ringing as if for fire. Captain Preston and six more men came on the 
ground. The men presented only their bayonets by way of defense 
against the mob, and fell back in front of the custom-house. They 
were ordered not to fire, and, in spite of the missiles and epithets hurled 
at them, managed to control themselves. But when a soldier received 
a severe blow from a club, he lost his sense of discipline, leveled his 
gun, and fired. Seven or eight more soldiers followed his example. 
When the mob had fled, three men were found dead on the ground. 
Two others were mortally wounded, and six slightly. The exploit 
afforded the Bostonians a certain grim satisfaction. The strain upon 
their patience had ended. The longed-for opportunity for action had 
come. The twenty-ninth regiment answered the beat of arms, and soon 
formed in King street. From the balcony of the State House, Governor 
Hutchinson, a man of old New England blood, promised that a thorough 
investigation should be made. Captain Preston, before daylight, sur- 
rendered himself and was placed in jail. The selectmen lost no time in 
waiting upon the Governor and assuring him that the troops must be 
removed from town. The Governor replied that the regiment that had 
had the fight with the rope-makers might be marched to the castle. 
This answer was carried to the town meeting, where the selectmen 
awaited it, in the Old South Church. Samuel Adams said that if there 
was authority for removing one regiment, there was authority to remove 
two. "Nothing short of the total evacuation of the town by all the 
regular troops," said he, "will satisfy the public mind and preserve the 
peace of the province. ' ' Hutchinson knew the humor of the New Eng- 
land men, and though all England laughed at him afterward for his 
compliance, he had all the troops removed. It delayed, beyond a doubt, 
the War of the Revolution, just five years. Preston was tried for mur- 
der, but was acquitted. Two soldiers were found guilty of manslaughter 
and sentenced to be branded in the hand. 

In the English cabinet it was decided that tea was still to be 
retained as a subject of taxation. An effort was made by the wiser 
members of Parliament to repeal this in less than a year after the act 
had been passed, but Lord North carried it by a majority. Lord North, 
who was minister, and the "Friends of the King," were now directing 
English affairs. The half-distraught young King was in no position to 
be either wise or generous, had he wished to be so; in truth, he was 
seriously out of patience with America, and was well pleased to vent his 



256 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

irritation upon her. The tranquility which had followed the removal 
of the troops from Boston was soon disturbed by the poor policy of Lord 
North. The Crown of England was interested in the prosperity of the 
East India Company. The United States steadily refused to import tea 
from England, and as a consequence the East India Company found 
itself burdened with seventeen million pounds of tea in its English 
store houses. To save it from bankruptcy the government lent it a 
million and a half of money. The directors of the East India Com- 
pany wished to be allowed to land the tea free in America. They 
knew much better than the English minister the humor of the men 
with whom they had to deal. The King insisted there must be one 
tax to keep up the right. The tax was only three pence a pound — 
half of that which was paid in England — but the English subject had the 
right to cast his vote upon the matter. American colonies were not 
represented. In this distinction lay all the difference between slavery- 
and freedom. To their great chagrin the people in Boston discovered, 
at this time, that their Governor, Hutchinson, was writing letters 
which they considered treasonable. He talked about the establishment 
of a patrician order, and in one letter said that there must be an abridge- 
ment of English liberties among the people of the colony. These 
letters were shown to Franklin, who was in England, and he obtained 
permission to send them to America. The Massachusetts assembly 
begged the King to remove Hutchinson and the Lieutenant-Governor 
from office. Edmund Burke, the young English statesman, says the 
council which met to consider this letter had the fullest meeting he ever 
remembered. Wedderburn, a lawyer, and one of Lord North's favorites, 
spoke for three hours against the petition, and turned a stonn of per- 
sonal abuse upon Franklin, who was present. Walpole and Pitt 
made the day famous — one by an epigram, the other by a reproof 
Franklin was quiet and apparently undisturbed, but he laid aside a suit 
of velvet clothes which he wore that day with the remark that he would 
never put them on again until Wedderburn' s insults were avenged. It 
was ten years before he enjoyed that privilege, and then, as Plenipo- 
tentiary of America, he signed, with the English Plenipotentiar\-, the 
treaty by which England acknowledged the independence of F'ranklin's 
country. To add to the excitement of the council in England, news 
had just reached them that three cargoes of the taxed tea which had 
been sent to Boston had been thrown overboard. 

The Dartmouth^ the first of the tea vessels, had arrived in Boston 
on November 24, 1774- A town meeting was called the next day at 



THE BOSTON TEA-DRINKERS. 



257 



the Old South Meeting-house. Samuel Adams moved that the tea 
should not be landed, that it should be sent back to the place from 
which it came, and that no duty should be paid on it. These resolu- 
tions were passed unanimously. The owner and master were directed 
that they were neither to enter the tea at the custom-house nor to land 
it. A watch was put on the ships, and six horsemen were appointed 




JLD BUILDlNIi AT BOSTON, WHERE THE TEA PLOT WAS HATCHED. 



to notify the country at once of any effort to land it by force. In ever}' 
town, it will be remembered, were a company of minutemen, well 
equipped and drilled, who were marksmen of no mean order. 

It was understood that in twenty days from the arrival of the first 
ship, the collector would make a formal demand for duties. The 
twenty days passed and the Governor would not permit the ship to 



258 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

return to London, even if she had desired to do so. Ships-of-war 
crowded the channels so that no vessel without a pass could go by the 
castle outward bound. The town meeting, which was held daily at the 
Old South Church, had rapidly increased, and on the twentieth day 
there was a throng. Messengers were sent to the Governor to make one 
last inquiry as to whether he would give the pass permitting the ship 
with its lading to leave the harbor or not. He refused. Samuel 
Adams arose in his seat, and said, with significant emphasis: "This 
meeting can do nothing more to save the country." Then there was a 
rush for the wharves, and in the hurr>'ing crowd were seen two bodies 
of young men, disguised as Mohawk Indians. They took possession of 
the tea ship, and bidding the captain furnish them with ropes and tackle, 
they elevated the chests on board, split them open and poured the tea 
into the harbor. There was no noise, no shouting or rejoicing. The 
matter was too serious. Every man who stood there, gravely watching the 
performance, knew what it meant, and that the responsibility assumed 
by the act was not small. It was nearh' dawn when the }-oung men 
had finished. Who they were no one to this day has ever learned. 

One man named Captain O'Connor, a devoted tea-drinker, tried to 
fill his pockets with the tea. Some more patriotic person seized him 
as he leaped from the vessel, and Captain O'Connor left the skirts of his 
coat in the hands of the man who tried to stop him. O'Connor's coat 
■was nailed to the whipping-post next day as a punishment for his lack of 
public spirit. Boston was not the only place which refused to accept the 
taxed tea. The ship sent to Philadelphia was stopped before she reached 
the city, and the captain was forced to turn her toward home. The tea 
sent to Charleston was landed, but was purposely stored in damp cellars. 
It would be safe to say that not one cup of tea was ever made from that 
which North tried to force upon the American colonies. On March 14, 
1775, North introduced the Boston port bill, which, by way of punish- 
ment for the insubordination of the place, closed the port. After June 
1 8th no person was to be allowed to load or unload any ship in the 
harbor. The council was hereafter to be appointed b}- the crown and 
the magistrates by the Governor. Government was provided for Quebec 
and all persons who had taken part in the late disturbance were to be 
tried in England. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Bord's "Boston Massacre." 
Scudder's "Boston Town." 
Poetry— "The Boston Tea Party." See Ford's Poems of History. 
Charles T. Brook's "The Old Thirteen." 
Philip Freulaw's "An Ancient Prophecy." 



CHAPTER L. 



1^0 ^Imh- of ynirmls. 



THE FIRST BLOOD OF THE REVOLUTION — THE MEN OF BILLERICA- 

FIGHT AT CONCORD AND LEXINGTON THE SIEGE OF 

BOSTON — THE BATTLE OF BUNKER HILL. 





' HERE was never a time when the people of the 
American colonies liked to be called traitors. 
Their habits of loyalty to the King of England 
made them lay all blame of oppression upon the 
king-'s ministers. The bills which had caused so 
much dissatisfaction were called ministerial bills ; 
the army whose presence so outraged them was called a 
ministerial army. Yet, if George III was determined in 
anything, it was to subdue and humiliate his colonies in 
America, which he deemed woefully arrogant and lacking 
in reverence. Besides, from no other source, he believed, 
could the treasury of England be so easily and rapidly 
replenished. The pushing of this policy on the part of 
the king, and the sturdy resistance on the part of the 
people, brought matters to a crisis. General Gage sent 
a small detachment of soldiers to Marshfield, in Plymouth county, for 
the purpose of protecting Tories there from insult. The people made 
no resistance or complaint about the matter, and General Gage 
gathered confidence from their apparent indifference. On the twent)- 
sixth of Februan,-, 1775, he sent out Colonel Leslie with a considerable 
company of men, to seize some cannon at Salem. The soldiers landed 
at Marblehead on Sunday morning, while the people were all at 
church, but the news of their landing was hurriedly carried to Salem 
by a messenger loyal to the American cause. The soldiers were 
allowed to march unmolested through the town of Salem, but when 
they came to the North Bridge, beyond which the cannon lay, they 
found that it had been drawn up — for it was a draw -bridge. The 



26o THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

people standing there quietly told Colonel Leslie that it was a private 
way, and that no one could be allowed to use it without the owner's 
consent. Colonel Leslie's reply was to put his men on board a couple 
of scows. The owners of these scows jumped into them and began to 
scuttle the boats. The soldiers drove them out with their bayonets. In 
this way the first blood of the Revolution was shed. There were no 
further hostilities then. The minister of Salem had a short talk with 
Colonel Leslie, and got him to accept a compromise. The draw-bridge 
was lowered. Colonel Leslie and his men walked over it and back 
again — but without the cannon. Then he retreated to Marblehead, 
and to Boston, while about him, as he retreated, sprang up the ready 
minute-men, who did nothing, however, but watch him. To detail all 
the irritations which deepened the feeling of resentment on both sides 
would be tedious. Not only was the feeling of anger steadily increasing 
between the English and Americans, but a stricter line was being drawn 
between the Conservatives and Radicals. A dispute as to where loyalty 
ended, and treason began, divided neighborhoods, churches and families. 
The Provincial Congress at INLassachusetts was quietly pro\'iding amis 
and provisions. The magazines of the province were at Concord and 
Worcester. Almost every town had its own little magazine. The 
confidence of these little hamlets is something really amazing. What 
they lacked in strength, they made up in determination. At Billerica, 
a citizen had bargained with a soldier for a gun. There was an act 
against trading with soldiers, and the citizen was locked up all night by 
the officers of the guard, and in the morning was tarred and feathered, 
without a hearing. The soldiers paraded him through the streets with 
a placard, on which was written, "American Liberty; or, a Specimen 
of Democracy." There were fifty voters in Billerica. These sent this 
portentious paper to General Gage: "May it please your excellency, we 
must tell you we are determined, if the innocent inhabitants of our 
country towns must be interrupted by soldiers in their lawful inter- 
course with the town of Boston, and treated with most brutish ferocity, 
we shall, hereafter, use a different style of petition than complaint." 
These petty defiances were really not without their effect upon General 
Gage. He was fully convinced that the country was a hot-bed of 
rebellion, and that it could not be taught a lesson too soon. He sent 
two officers to reconnoitre about Concord and Worcester, where the maga- 
zines of the province were. On Tuesday evening, the eighteenth of 
April, eight hundred men were given instructions to seize and destroy 
the guns, ammunition and stores at Concord. The troops marched 



THE BLOOD OF PATRIOTS. 261 

at night. They left Boston, under command of Colonel Smith, embark- 
ing at the water edge of the Common. They landed at Leshmoor's, 
which is now called Cambridge, and marched across the salt marshes, 
striking the road to Menotomy. This excursion had long been expected. 
The Americans had prepared for it. Doctor Warren had returned to 
Concord from the meeting of the Provincial Congress at Boston. As 
soon as Gage launched his boats, Warren sent word to Hancock and 
Adams by Paul Revere. Paul Revere was a coppersmith and engraver. 
He had been one of the thirty mechanics to patrol the streets of Boston 
at night all through the winter, in order to watch the movements of the 
English troops. Revere carried his message to Hancock, and passing 
through Charlestown, agreed, with a number of gentlemen there, that if 
the British started out by sea, two lanterns should be shown in the 
North Church steeple, and if by land, one as a signal. On the night 
that General Gage moved, Warren sent in great haste for Revere and 
begged him to set off for Lexington. He took his coat and boots with 
him for his ride and was rowed across the river to Charlestown. The 
night was clear and frosty, with stars overhead. Revere found a good 
horse and waited for the signals. At eleven o'clock, two lanterns were 
hung in the belfry of the Old North Church. Revere began his famous 
ride. At ever^^ farm house, in every town, the people were aroused. 
At Lexington he told Hancock and Adams. Here, also, he was joined 
by Dr. Prescott and William Dawes. On the way, Dawes and Prescott 
stopped to alanu a house, and Revere was taken prisoner by four 
English officers. Dawes was also detained, but Prescott escaped to 
ride on with the news. Colonel Smith, at the head of the English 
detachment, had made every effort to keep the news from spreading. 
When he found that the alarm had been given, he sent to Boston for 
reinforcements. As he had taken all the boats with him which were 
at the command of General Gage, the reinforcements were obliged to 
march by land in a roundabout way. General Gage's men were not 
used to rapid action of this sort, and it was nine o'clock in the morning 
before they had even gathered upon the Common ready for the march. 
It was very different, however, with the minutemen of the colonies. 
Waking and sleeping, for weeks, they had thought of nothing but such an 
opportunity. The Lexington minutemen were soon drawn up in 
array. They were under the command of John Parker, a veteran of the 
French war. Parker saw that his men were largely outnumbered, 
and tried to withdraw his men. Colonel Pitcairn, who commanded the 
column, rushed forward, crying, "Disperse, rebels, disperse!" No 



262 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

other words, however carefully selected, could have so inflamed the 
Americans. But there was a great desire on both sides not to have the 
responsibility for beginning the war. To the last the commanders of 
both forces ordered the men not to fire. Both commanders always 
insisted afterwards that their men did not fire first. What really 
happened is not known, nor does it especially matter. There was a 
general firing on both sides. The shots from the Americans hurt no 
one. The firing of the English killed and wounded many of the 
Lexington party. Seven were killed and ten wounded out of the little 
force of seventy, that, in the grey light of the earh- morning, fought on 
Lexington Common. The English troops pressed on to Concord. The 
whole country was alarmed and the people were rising rapidly. There 
are traditions still in Middlesex and Worcester counties, of a man on a 
white horse, who rode faster than any mortal man could ride, to say that 
the English had left Boston and the war had begun. The minutemen 
were cautious, and seeing that they were far outnumbered, they formed 
upon a bold hill about eighty rods behind the village of Lexington, 
near the "North Bridge." There Colonel Barrett joined them as soon 
as he had done all that was possible in the way of concealing the 
ammunition and supplies in the storehouse. Colonel Smith, the 
English commander, began his duties by destroying three new cannons, 
which Colonel Barret had been unable to remove. To this he added 
the not very dignified action of breaking up some wooden spoons and 
trenchers. He set fire to a number of buildings — among them the 
court house. In the midst of all this, shots were heard at the North 
Bridge, where the minutemen had taken their stand. Some English 
soldiers had been stationed on the bridge and the officers of the 
minutemen decided to drive them away. It was the Lincoln minute- 
men who volunteered to clear the bridge. ' 'There is not a man in my 
company that is afraid," said Captain Davis. The column was ordered 
to pass the bridge without firing, but if attacked, to return the fire. 
They marched to the air of "The White Cockade." When they were 
within a short distance of the bridge the English fired three volleys. 
Two captains were killed. One of them was Davis, who, had he lived, 
might have done much good to the American cause. The English 
were forced to retreat, and the minutemen crossed the bridge. The 
militia, gathering in the town, joined as rapidly as they could the main 
force upon the hill. In one way the Provincials had decidedly the 
better of the Englishmen. They knew every inch of the ground. The 
fords, the passes between the hills, the irregular roads through the 



THE BLOOD OF PATRIOTS. 263 

forest were as well known to them as if they had been the square of a 
city. The way in which these determined, but raw companies of men 
poured down into Lexington never ceased to amaze the Englishmen. 
As Smith marched back from Concord, he found every cross-road held 
by the Americans. 

"They are trained," wrote General Gage, "to protect themselves 
behind stone walls; they seem to drop from the skies." Smith was 
badly wounded. His men returned to Lexington — a march of nearly 
eight miles — in two hours. The retreat from Lexington to Boston 
was a rout. There was not then, and there never could be, a question 
about English discipline or braver>% but now the men had no choice 
but to retreat in rapid disorder. The road seemed to be lined with 
men, between which the panting English had to run. Lord Percy» 
with the reinforcements, met them away below Lexington and guarded 
them with field-pieces, that they might rest for a time. They laid on 
the ground panting, in the midst of a hollow square he formed to shield 
them. The sun was going down when they reached Charlestown 
Neck, which leads into Boston. Beacon Hill was crowded with people 
watching for their return. The English posted their sentries on their 
side of Charlestown Neck and the Americans rested on the other side. 
The militia were ordered to lie on their arms at Cambridge. In that 
dreadful march the English lost sixty-five killed, one hundred and 
seventy-eight wounded and twenty-six missing. The loss of the 
Americans was forty-nine killed, thirty-six wounded and five missing. 

The minutemen continued to pour down. They were stationed at 
Cambridge. The news of the attack at Lexington was carried from 
province to province. From New York it was sent to Virginia, from 
Virginia to the Carolinas, from the Carolinas to Georgia, while other 
messengers carried it in haste to j\Iaine, New Hampshire and the 
"Grants," as Vermont was then called. When General Gage's forces 
were taken back to the barracks at Charlestown, the American army 
was in a condition to besiege Boston. All through the winter the 
patriots had been laying plans for the removing of the people from 
Boston in the event of a siege. They now asked permission of General 
Gage to take thirty families from the town daily. This he consented 
to, but the Tories of Boston finally persuaded him that if the American 
Whigs all left the city, they (the English) would probably burn the 
town. General Gage withdrew his consent to the evacuation, and the 
militia were obliged to besiege a town in which their own kinsmen 
were still living. Minutemen were posted in Cambridge, just outside of 



264 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Charlestown Neck, and in Roxbiin-. Works were thrown up on the 
Cliarles river and on the salt marshes. The only egress from Boston 
was guarded by a strong fort. General Artemas Ward, of Shrewsbur}-, 
was the chief officer of the American forces. Under him were Spencer, 
of Connecticut, Green, of Rhode Island, and Folsom, of New Hampshire. 
The works were all planned by Henr\- Knox, a young Boston book- 
seller, who had long been interested in military studies. He was helped 
by Gridley, a veteran of the French war. On the 4th of May there was 
a rumor that General Gage intended to march out, and all the minute- 
men near Boston were called into ser\-ice, but nothing came of the 
matter, except that General Gage was given a chance to see how large a 
reserve force there was at the command of the enemy. On the 13th of 
]\Iay, General Israel Putnam marched an army of thirteen hundred 
men from Cambridge to Charlestown Neck, and from Charlestown to 
the ferry there. On the 27th, Putnam led a skirmish at an island 
northeast of Boston, in the harbor. The English, by this raid, lost a 
large number of sheep and cattle, besides a sloop and se\-eral men. 
There were several skirmishes of this character, in which the English 
were generally worsted. The Americans desired to get all the cattle off 
the islands and to provision themselves as well as possible for the 
coming conflict. In two of these skirmishes alone, Gage lost thirteen 
hundred sheep. On the 25th of May, Generals Howe, Clinton and 
Burgoyne came over from England with large reinforcements. When 
they reached Newport harbor the)- met a vessel, of which they asked 
the news. When they learned that Boston was being held by an army 
of ten thousand, and that the English garrison of five thousand was 
permitting the siege to continue. General Burgoyne cried, "Ten thou- 
sand peasants keep five thousand of the King's troops shut up? Let us 
get in and we will soon find elbow-room." After this, Burgoyne was 
oftener called "elbow-room" than anything else. 

Boston is commanded b}- Charlestown on the north and by Dorchester 
heights on the south. Both parties were ambitious to occupy these 
heights. The English general laid explicit plans for the occupation of 
both of them. While the Englishmen were making their soldierly 
plans, the Americans, with less system, were marching to take possession 
of them. They desired to fortif)- Bunker Hill and command the har- 
bor. After much consultation they finally fortified a spur of Bunker 
Hill, which was called Reed's Farm, and from which guns could sweep 
the harbor more effectually than they would if placed on the main hill. 
This hill was well fortified. Colonel Gridlev marked out the lines of a 



THE BLOOD OF PATRIOTS. 



265 



redoubt. An earthwork extended for a hundred rods to the north and 
stopped at the marshy place at the north side of the hill, where the 
marsh was thought a sufficient obstacle. This work was begun at mid- 





BUNKER HILL MONUMENT. 



night and progressed steadih' and quietly by the bright moonlight. It 
was some time after day-break before the commander of an English 
frigate saw the new fortification, and awoke the town with the fire 



266 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

which he opened upon them. General Gage was soon up and talking 
with his officers about what had best be done. He was a brave man 
even to rashness. He decided to attack the American redoubt in front. 
He had been greatly reinforced since the day of Lexington, and had 
with him a reliable corps of generals, in whom he placed great con- 
fidence. But they were not ready to attack until the afternoon, and the 
American works were being strengthened every hour. Few of the 
Knglishmen had been under fire, and at the first attack they broke 
ranks and ran. The second attack was as fatal, but in the third a weak 
spot was discovered in the American lines. This was pressed upon 
from the rear as well as the front. There would still have been no 
need of yielding upon the part of the Americans, had not their supply 
of powder given out. As it was, the Provincial forces were withdrawn 
to Bunker Hill. The English did not follow. From first to last the 
patriots had conducted the matter watli great discretion. They had had 
the courage to stand still until the English were within a few feet of them 
and to be fired upon without replying until they could do so with effect. 
The enthusiastic American officers, most of whom had hung over the 
pages of Frederick the Great, knew almost as well what was the best 
policy as if they had had practical experience. It is said that at the 
battle of Prague the Prussian order was ' 'no firing until you see the 
whites of their eyes." Prescott, who had studied the memoirs of the 
wars of Frederick the Great, gave this order at Bunker Hill, with the 
added instruction to "fire low" and to "fire at their waist-bands." 
That their small supph- of powder held out so long was owing entirely 
to this economy, which required far more courage than vigorous action 
would have done. 

The victor}' had been won at a terrible cost. The English had a 
force at the beginning of the battle of two thousand five hundred men, 
of whom one thousand and fifty-four were killed and wounded. Howe 
said, "They may talk of their Mindens and their Fontenoys, but there 
was no such firing there." Among those killed was the brave Warren 
— who became a general on the very day of his death. In the fifty- 
second company, led by Howe, every man was killed or wounded. 
From that time till the close of the war, seven years later, the English 
were always careful of leading their troops against entrenched men. 
The American loss was one hundred and fifty killed, two hundred and 
seventy wounded and thirty prisoners. In a sense, the battle of Bunker 
Hill decided the war. For the future there could be no drawing back. 
The English were put upon their metal. They no longer deluded them- 



THE BLOOD OF PATRIOTS. 



267 



selves with the belief that they were trying to quell a party of dissat- 
isfied fanners. It was no longer possible for any man in the colonies 
to remain neutral. Personal matters were lost sight of The money, 
time and brains of every one in the United Colonies were given up 
now to a struggle for the overthrow of oppression. 

FOR FURTHER READING : 
Poetry — I,ongfellow's "Ride of Paul Revere." 
S. R. Bartlett's "Concord Fight." 
Emmons' "The Battle of Bunker Hill." 
Sidney Lainer's "Battle of Lexington." 
Geo. H. Calvert's "Bunker Hill." 
W. C. Bryant's "'76." 
Drama — Breckenridge's "Bunker Hill." 
J. Burke's "Bunker Hill." 




CHAPTER LI. 



Jfibrii^ nr ^tn{\. 



ETHAN ALLEN AND THE GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS— SURRENDER OF 
TICONDEROGA — WASHINGTON CHOSEN COMMANDER-IN- 
CHIEF — THE LACK OF POWDER — RECALL 
OF GENERAL GAGE — SMALL 
NAVAL CONQUESTS. 



HE Continental Congress met on May loth. Its 
members did not know that far in the north Ethan 
Allen and a band of Vermonters, known as the 
"Green Mountain Boys," were making efiforts to 
help in the establishment of American independ- 
ence. The country known as the New Hamp- 
shire Grants, otherwise our State of Vermont, was 
then a wilderness. For years it had been the site of colo- 
nial strife between New Hampshire and New York, both 
of which claimed the territory. The people of the grants 
were without regular government and had no village. 
There was not even a countr}^ store in the entire territory. 
But the people had formed a league for mutual protection 
against the claims of New York. This league was known 
by the name of the "Green Mountain Boys." They 
had a rude military organization which showed such systematic 
resistance to the law that a price was set upon the heads of the leaders. 
Ticonderoga and Crown Point, now held by the English, were consid- 
ered by the people of the grants as the gates to New York. The officers 
of the Crown, who so frequently made their unjust demands on the 
farms scattered about the sides of the Green Mountains, made their 
headquarters at Ticonderoga, and the indignation of the Green Moun- 
tain Boys was especially leveled at that garrison. The first tidings of 
war that reached the North made the men anxious to do their part in 
freeing the countr>' from the British tyranny which they had felt so 




LIBERTY OR DEATH. 269 

keenly. John Brown, of Pittsfield, a lawyer, and one of the leading 
patriots, made a journey through the grants to Canada, for the pur- 
pose of learning what the sentiments of the Canadians were in regard to 
the approaching struggle. On returning to his home he felt justified 
in applying to the Committee of Safety, in Boston, for help. The stores 
at Ticonderoga were coveted, and Connecticut and Western Massachu- 
setts were as anxious as the people of the grants to conquer the fort, 
which, it was understood, was thinly garrisoned and in a decayed con- 
dition. Colonel Parsons, of Connecticut, and Captain Benedict Arnold 
got three hundred pounds from the treasury on their own responsibility 
and set off with two men, one of whom had been an engineer in the 
British service. They conveyed northward permission from the Con- 
gress of Connecticut to lead the Green Mountain Boys against Ticon- 
deroga. In the meantime, Ethan Allen, who had long been the chief 
of the Green Mountain Boys, had made ready for an attack. All the 
roads leading to the lake were guarded to prevent any one from carrying 
news to the fort. He knew nothing of the scheme which Benedict 
Arnold had laid, and on May 8, 1775, started with one hundred and 
forty men to go to the lake opposite Ticonderoga. 

His plans had been craftily laid. A man by the name of Phelps 
had disguised himself as a countryman, and entered the fort on the pre- 
text of wanting his face shaved. In a manner of great stupidity and 
curiosity he asked all the questions he wished, and left without being 
suspected. Thirty men had been detailed by Allen to capture the 
British camp and then to drop down the lake and join him. Allen had 
reached the point he desired, when Benedict Arnold came hurrying to 
the camp and announced that he was colonel and commander-in-chief 
of all the party. The officers took him into their confidence, showed 
him their plans, and tried to win his co-operation. Allen was in a 
hurry for action, and feared unless they moved quickly they would not 
be able to surprise the fort. Arnold insisted on taking entire com- 
mand. Ethan Allen, brave, vain, and headstrong, was not likely to 
yield at the head of men whom he had organized. At length it was 
proposed that the two men should march together at the head of the 
column. This compromise was accepted, and a force of eighty-three 
men marched upon the fort. The garrison was asleep, and Allen 
hastened to the quarters of Captain Delaplace. The Captain leaped out 
of bed, crying: "By what authority?" "In the name of the Great 
Jehovah and the Continental Congress," said Allen. It doubtless went 
against the grain of the experienced soldier to yield to an uncouth, 



270 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

awkward braggart, such as Allen must have seemed to him. But the 
garrison was asleep, himself unarmed, undressed, and at disadvantage. 
There was nothing for it but surrender. The stores and military 
material, including one hundred and twenty pieces of cannon, were 
captured. Crown Point was taken a little later. 

The Continental Congress, during its session at Philadelphia, chose 
as Commander-in-chief of the American forces, George Washington, of 
Virginia. Artemas Ward, of INIassachusetts, was to be his ]\Iajor-Gen- 
eral. Gates, of Virginia, his Adjutant-General. Charles Lee, an Eng- 
lish officer, and Schuyler and Putnam, were also Major-Generals. 
Washington and Gates hastened to Cambridge, hearing on their way of 
the battle of Bunker Hill. It was the 2d of July when Washington 
and his friends arrived at Cambridge, and on the 4th of July he 
assumed command. His hurried but thorough investigation of the 
army, its plans and materials, showed him that their great danger lay 
in a lack of powder. In the thirteen States there was hardly enough 
for one general action. The apothecary shops in New York were 
searched for saltpetre. Letters were written in all directions, asking 
that it might be sent to headquarters, if only in the smallest quantities. 
A man of less tact than Washington might have started many feuds in 
the army for he had difficulty in getting his officers and Congress to 
always work in harmony. Unlike many of the men about him, he was 
a gentleman of high breeding, cultivated, politic, and experienced. 
The reputation which he had of being the best statesman and the 
richest man in Virginia won him the admiration of the people of the 
southern colonies, while, on the other hand, his directness and sim- 
plicit}' of speech, his gravity and sensible caution, endeared him to the 
northern men. 

An attack from the English lines was dreaded. The Americans 
feared to be outnumbered. Of the sixteen thousand seven hundred 
and seventy-one New Englanders, nearly two thousand were sick or 
absent from duty. The American army was divided by the Charles 
river, over which there was but one small and insecure bridge. Orders 
were given to keep the minutemen in the towns in constant readiness 
and to sustain a thorough drill. But the English Generals had no 
intention of moving. The strain on them at Bunker Hill had been 
greater than the Americans guessed. The heat of the summer was 
hard on the wounded. In England it was thought that Gage was inex- 
cusably languid, and he was recalled and practically disgraced. These 
matters hindered the attack of the English, which hindrance the 



LIBERTY OR DEATH. 27 1 

devoted New England men considered nothing less than providential. 
The Americans were making every effort to procure powder, lead, cloth- 
ing and tents. Benjamin Franklin was on the Committee of Safety, in 
Philadelphia, and he was among the most active in the attempts to pro- 
vide these necessary- articles. Robert Livingstone, of New York, estab- 
lished a powder mill so secretly that none of the English spies round 
about found it out until Livingstone made a raid on the government's 
stock of saltpetre and carried it off. The Committee of Safety, in 
Georgia, got hold of a supply of powder intended for the Florida 
Indians. Several hundred barrels were captured from a trading vessel 
in the Gulf of Mexico. An attack was made on Bermuda and a goodly 
quantity secured there. In New Orleans, Oliver Pollock, an American, 
was sending powder to Pittsburg by the river. As soon as the English 
cruisers were taken away from the coast at the approach of autumn, the 
government sent an eighty-ton vessel to Bordeaux to buy powder on the 
account of ' 'The Continent. ' ' The lead mines of Connecticut had been 
worked some, and the products were now used for ammunition. By the 
press of necessity a little navy was being started. On May 5th the 
people of New Bedford and Dartmouth, irritated at the Falcon^ one of the 
British sloops of war, which hung about the coast, recaptured a vessel 
with fifteen prisoners which the Falcon had previously secured. On 
June 1 2th the Margaretta^ an armed sloop belonging to the Crown, 
was taken off the main coast, as well as two other sloops of lesser size. 
Jeremiah O'Brien was made marine captain by the Provincial Congress 
of Massachusetts, and was stationed in Boston harbor to intercept sup- 
plies sent to the English troops. Washington supplied armaments and 
money from the Continental treasur}^ and six small vessels received 
commissions. Both Connecticut and Rhode Island had a small vessel 
in the service. 

The destitution of the English troops was becoming extreme. 
They were shut up in Boston by the activity of the Continental troops. 
Their supplies were being carried into the camp of the enemy, and sick- 
ness was rapidly increasing among them. But the forces under 
Washington were rapidly growing. In six weeks they had increased 
two thousand three hundred and ninety. Among them were several 
companies of riflemen from Virginia — men who could hit a target of 
seven inches at a distance of two hundred and fifty yards, while in rapid 
motion. But the Americans were unused to camp life, and sickness 
began to tell among them also. As soon as Washington received a 
sufficient supply of powder to justify action he advance his works to the 



272 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

left by fortifying Plowed Hill. This brought the circle of his lines so 
that the extreme left was north of Boston. His headquarters were on 
the Charles river, just beyond Cambridge. The right wing, under Gen- 
eral Ward, reached Dorchester Neck, directly south of Boston. 

In October, Cape Ann, or what we now know as Gloucester, and 
Falmouth, now Portland, in Maine, were burned by the English. This 
was done by a fleet of armed vessels. The act seemed like a misfortune, 
but in reality it raised the Americans to a full understanding of what 
war meant. Previously they had hardly realized that they had laid 
themselves open to attack in any direction. They had believed that 
the conflict would be confined to Boston Bay. It was necessary' to take 
active measures for meeting the enemy upon the sea as well as on the 
land. During the past few months the coast towns had been at the 
mercy of the English vessels, Newport had been threatened, and was 
only spared when it consented to furnish the commander of the English 
fleet with provisions. Bristol was bombarded, and many houses 
destroyed. A force landed on the island of Canonicut, in December, 
burned houses and barns, andcarriedoff all the live stock. Washington 
was obliged to send down a detachment of men, although he could ill 
spare them. General Lee took a force of eight hundred to Newport, 
and not only placed them so that they could protect a considerable 
stretch of land, but so that they could keep a close watch upon the 
Tories of the district as well, who were suspected of carrying informa- 
tion to the enemy. It was not easy for the New Englanders to equip a 
fleet of war. But the work progressed steadily, if slowly. The first 
notable victory at sea was the taking of the brigantine Nancy ^ loaded 
with military stores. These were more than acceptable to the anny. 
Washington was with difficulty keeping the soldiers with him. The 
term of enlistment of the Connecticut men had expired, and they were 
anxious to return to their homes. It was found that Dr. Benjamin 
Church, a member of the House in Massachusetts, was secretly writing 
letters to his brother-in-law in Boston, which revealed the condition and 
plans of the American army. He was expelled from the House and put in 
close confinement. Washington reorganized his army and issued a general 
order for the enlistment of new men. The corps of officers was pruned and 
improvements were made in all respects. On Januar>' 2, 1776, the army 
was practically a new one. At this time the army carried the national 
flag which we now have, with the exception of the number of stars, 
which were then but thirteen, in accordance with the number of the 
colonies. General Howe, shut up in Boston, met with many discour- 



LIBERTY OR DEATH. 273 

agements. Numerous accidents befell his provision ships. Some of 
them were taken by the enemy, and others met with severe storms and 
were obliged to discharge their cargoes. He even found difficulty in 
providing barracks for his troops during the winter season. He would 
have been glad to evacuate, but thought he had not transports enough 
to remove his force, and wrote to England for more help. He pulled 
down the Old North Church Aleeting-house for fuel, and was obliged to 
mine for coal in Cape Breton. Faneuil Hall, to the great horror of the 
Bostonians when they heard of it, was used to hold theatrical entertain- 
ments in. General Burgoyne, who had at that time more fame as a 
literary man than as a soldier, wrote a little play which he called the 
"Siege of Boston." This was being performed, when a sergeant rushed 
upon the stage and cried that the Yankees were on Boston Hill. The 
audience laughed heartily, thinking it a part of the performance, but in a 
few moments the officers were ordered to hasten to their posts, and the 
audience broke up in confusion. It was true that some of the Connec- 
ticut companies had crossed the Neck, and fired the bakery of the 
English at Charlestown. In the midst of such alarm Burgoyne returned 
to England. The "elbow-room" which he had thought to make was 
not yet his. The American Congress, from time to time, had consid- 
ered the advisability of setting fire to Boston, but this Washington was 
reluctant to do. He believed that if such a disaster could be avoided^ 
it was best to do it. General Howe himself did not permit the destruc- 
tion of property more than he could help. 

Washington wished to cross to Boston on the ice, but in the council" 
of war which he called he was outvoted. General Howe, on his part, 
sent a party on the ice to Dorchester Neck, who destroyed every house 
on the peninsula, and took some Americans prisoners. Washington 
would never have remained so inactive had he been supplied with 
powder and heavy artillery. He was almost in despair, when the 
capture of the Nancy renewed his hopes, and gave him ammunition. 
Benedict Arnold and Ethan Allen sent down the guns they had taken 
from Ticonderoga. Under the direction of Henry Knox, the cannon 
were put upon fifty-two sleds and drawn b)^ long teams of men over the 
snow-covered passes of the Green Mountains and the rude roads of New 
England. 

As soon as these reached Washington he called out all the militia of 
the neighborhood. Ten regiments reinforced him 3X once. Ward was 
given the over-sight of the movement upon Dorchester heights and 
entrusted the immediate command to John Thomas. The ground was 



2 74 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

frozen and it was impossible to throw up works, but fascines were 
collected and made a fair defence. On the night of Saturday, March 
7, 1776, the American works opened a cannonading at the north of 
Boston. This was kept up through the two following nights for the 
purpose of occupying the attention of the English. Meanwhile John 
Thomas' train, which consisted of twelve hundred men, took possession 
of a high hill upon Dorchester heights. Four hundred yoke of oxen drew 
the material for the works, passing within a mile of the English sentinels, 
who had no thought for anything but the cannonading at the north. 
In one night the men threw up a very good defence. The works had 
been planned by Gridley, who had been so successful with the plans of 
Bunker Hill. When Howe's astonished eyes saw these in the morning 
he thought they must have been built b>' twelve thousand men. The 
English fleet dared not remain under fire from these guns. Howe 
himself feared to attack the works. He notified Washington at once 
that if he would not molest the town or the ships, he would leave 
Boston peaceably. On the morning of Sunday, the 17th of March, he 
sailed with his whole arm>', after destroying all of his property which 
he could not take away. He found that in an emergency he had ship- 
ping enough to carry off" his force. With Howe, sailed about eleven 
hundred loyalists, to whom the cause of the King was still dear. Many 
of these settled in Nova Scotia. 

The few people left in Boston received the army as benefactors 
when they marched in with music and flying banners. Washington 
was treated with great courtesy, and the street up which he rode still 
bears his name. Congress ordered a gold medal to be presented to him 
— the first coin struck by independent America. Upon its face was a 
picture of besieged Boston with a group of horsemen in the foreground 
and the proud motto: "Hostibus primo fugatis." 

Washington believed that the next point of attack would be New 
York, and continued his preparations for an engagement there. For 
three months the country was left with hardly a foreign soldier on its 
soil. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

Fiction — H. Hagel's "Old I'lit." 

Hawthorne's "Scptiiuius Feltoii." 

Cooper's "Lionel Lincoln." 

D. 1'. Thompson's "Green Mountain Boys." 
Poetry — "Song of the Venuonters." Anon. 




c 


'' 


c 


,= 






r- 


j: 


;s 


-^ 


c 


r 






<- 


" 




>. 


ii- 


— 


c 


bj; 


►— 


'- 






^ 


r. 


<j; 








K 





CHAPTER LII, 



')}^$ fhm trf jL&ral^Hm. 



The designs for the American conquest of Canada — Mont- 
gomery's MOVE against MONTREAL — ARNOLD'S FAILURE 
AT QUEBEC — THE UNION OF THE FORCES — THE SECOND 
DEFEAT AT MONTREAL — THE AMERICANS FALL 
BACK UPON TICONDEROGA AND 
CROWN POINT. 




WT the north, Arnold and Allen carried on a sort of 
(^ J/ freebooting together. They were ambitious to 
^^^j get Lake Champlain in the hands of the patriots. 
In all sea adventures Arnold was given the lead, 
gj>'^ and under his command an English sloop was 
captured. Encouraged by this, they laid a plan for 
the conquest of Canada. Arnold took up his quarters 
at Crown Point, and Allen remained at Ticonderoga. 
Congress was timid about seconding the ambitious 
designs of Arnold, and sent a committee of men to 
confer with him. They found him sullen and obsti- 
nate, and learned that his followers were in a state of 
mutiny against the government, and willing to side 
with him even at the cost of patriotism. A thousand 
men had been assigned by Connecticut to garrison Ticonderoga. When 
Arnold learned that these were to be commanded by Colonel Hinman, 
he resigned, as he was not willing to be second in command. 

The Governor of Canada was determined to retake Ticonderoga and 
Crown Point. As for the Canadians themselves, they were in a state of 
comparative indifference. The richer element was probably truer to the 
king than were the common people. The Indians of the Mohawk val- 
ley had been estranged from the Americans, and were now the allies of 
the Canadians. There was a call for volunteers on the part of the 
American Congress, and, meanwhile, Ethan Allen and Major John 



276 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Brown were sent into the country between Lake Champlain and 
Montreal, to discover the true condition of affairs there. Schuyler was 
Commander-in-chief of all the northern forces, and about the middle of 
August, 1775, was ready to move his troops. Altogether, these did not 
number quite two thousand. Schuyler's chief subordinate officer was 
General Richard Montgomery, a young Irishman of much soldierly 
experience and strong personal attractions. He was with Wolfe at the 
capture of Quebec, in 1759, and had further won the confidence of the 
Americans by marrying one of the ladies of the patriotic Livingstone 
family. No general among the Americans was more popular with the 
soldiers. Schuyler fell ill shortly after leaving Ticonderoga, and the 
command devolved upon Montgomery. In the light skirmish in which 
the conflict opened, Montgomery was thoroughly disheartened by the 
cowardice of his soldiers. The troops were raw and undisciplined. 
They suffered not alone from bodily ailment, but from intense homesick- 
ness. Boston men, fighting for the protection of their homes, and in 
the face of a brave and determined enemy, had plenty to keep up their 
spirits. But to fight in the midst of a wilderness for the possession of a 
fortification, with winter approaching, and a poor outlook for provisions, 
could not but be dispiriting to men who were new to the profession of 
arms, and cared little for conflict in the abstract — men who had not 
even learned the value of subordination and discipline. 

Allen himself, though a brave man, was a bad soldier in some ways. 
He had never learned the necessity of waiting for orders, and was quick 
to do whatever his impulse prompted. When he was on his way to 
join Montgomery's camp, with a force of eighty Indians, he fell in with 
Major Brown, who had two hundred men in his party. These two 
leaders decided to attack Montreal. They had heard that there were no 
more than thirty men in garrison at that point, and that the towns- 
people sympathized with the Americans. The plan was for them to 
attack the city with two columns of men, above and below. The 
river was crossed in a blustering storm, and Allen's band, at early dawn, 
stood shivering upon the river bank waiting for Brown's men, who 
never came. The garrison set upon Allen, killed a number of his men, 
and carried others as prisoners to England. Among these unfortunates 
was Allen himself. 

The American expedition against the fort of Chambly was successful. 
The inhabitants round about aided in its capture. The stores of ammu- 
nition and provisions were taken to the army encamped under the walls 
of St. John. An attempt on the part of the English to relieve the 



THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM, 2']'] 

garrison there was repulsed and the fort was finally surrendered, 
principally because the provisions had given out. By this surrender 
five hundred regular troops, the greater part of the British anny in 
Canada, fell into the hands of the Americans. Montgomery believed 
that the time had now come to take Montreal. He posted forces so 
that all communication would be prevented between that city and 
Quebec. Upon both sides of the river he planted batteries. On the 
13th of November he marched into the town, without bloodshed, the 
Governor and the garrison having left. In the meantime, Washington 
had sent up a supporting party, numbering eleven hundred men. 
These were well equipped, although, from the nature of the journey, 
they could carry no field-pieces. Washington himself had outlined the 
expedition. He desired them to ascend the Kennebec river, cross the 
highlands that divided it from the Chaudiere, and descend that stream 
to where it enters the St. Charles, nearly opposite Quebec. Washington 
had a hand-bill printed, which was distributed among the Canadians 
for the purj^ose of impressing upon them the friendly spirit of the 
Americans and begging them to join in the cause of liberty and assist 
in driving the British from America. With the men who had the 
country's interests most at heart the conflict in Canada was not a side 
issue, but an important part of the war. They set a high value upon 
that extensive and fertile country, with its magnificent rivers and 
superior natural advantages. 

But Washington expected far too much of Arnold and his men. 
He desired them to meet Schuyler's army, which was then in motion, 
and to take but twenty days for a march of two hundred miles. It 
took, instead, sixty days, and the little army of eleven hundred men 
had been reduced to about one-half when it reached the St. Charles. 
Their boats had been swamped in the treacherous Chaudiere; they had 
marched through bogs and were forced to make exhausting portages, 
carrying their heavy loads with them; they had a fatal lack of 
acquaintance with the country, and were out of provisions long before 
they reached their destination, and were obliged to eat shaving soap, 
candles, salve and dogs, even boiling their moccasins in the hopes of 
getting some nourishment from them. The horrors of the march are 
sickening, and not the least shocking scene was when Arnold, who had 
hurried on to procure provisions, sent back cattle and other supplies to 
his starving men. They ate like wild beasts, and many of them died 
from the effects of their indiscretion. It took them ten days to march 
the last thirty miles after they had entered Canada, for, although the 



278 THE STORY OK AMERICA. 

road was now comparatively easy, the men were too exhausted to go far 
in a day. During that last delay, one hundred men, mostly carpenters, 
had come down from Newfoundland and were busy repairing the 
defenses of Quebec. By the time Arnold was in a position for attack, 
soldiers were brought down the river and had prepared for the defense 
of the city. Washington had relied upon the surprise of Quebec, but 
Arnold had himself given information of his movements by a letter 
which he entrusted to a faithless guide. 

On the 13th of November, the very day that Montgomery entered 
Montreal, Arnold took his men over the same ground that Wolfe had 
taken, and in the morning had an army on the plains of Abraham, 
behind Quebec. But the English did not, as Montcalm had done, 
respond to the challenge. There was no revolt in th^ city — a thing 
which both Arnold and Washington had counted upon. Arnold had 
not the power to make a breach in the walls near the city. The 
garrison was shortly reinforced, and Arnold was obliged to break camp 
and retreat to Point Aux Trembles. Here Montgomery joined him on 
the 1st of December and took the command. The army now consisted 
of three thousand men, with six field-pieces and five light mortars. 
They encamped before Quebec. Deep snow lay over all the country, 
and as it was impossible to build earthworks, Montgomery had fascines 
set up. These were filled with snow, over which water was poured, 
making a barricade of ice. It looked cruel and forbidding, but the 
first cannonading broke it in pieces. The men were encamped there 
for three weeks. Montgomery found them hard to manage, and on 
Christmas day decided that an attack should be made under cover of the 
first stormy night. The plans were elaborately laid. Arnold was to 
penetrate the lower town, Montgomery to advance to the rocky heights 
of Cape Diamond and reach the upper town by an easy communication. 
Aaron Burr had charge of a forlorn hope which was to scale the Cape 
Diamond bastion. The night of the 30th, as had been hoped, was dark 
and stormy. Montgomer>''s men made their way over blocks of ice 
and through the drifting snow till they reached the barricades under 
Cape Diamond. The Americans crowded past this and Montgomery 
urged on the advance, but as they neared the block-house, which was 
pierced for muskets, the brave young leader was killed, just as he cried, 
"Push on, brave boys. Quebec is ours." Two captains and two 
privates were killed at the same moment, and the Americans retreated 
in disorder. Arnold's men, imder cover of the storm, had reached the 
palace gate, but here at the first barricade Arnold was wounded. 



THE PLAINS OF ABRAHAM. 279 

Morgan, a Virginian, at the head of his riflemen, took the lead, and 
scaled the barricade with ladders. He was knocked down once; he 
mounted again at the head of his men. He carried the barricade and 
drove the enemy into the houses at the sides of the street. If he could 
have had reinforcements, he would have carried the day; but the odds 
were too heavy. He tried to cut his way out, but was surrounded on 
all sides and obliged to surrender. He had four hundred and sixty-six 
men with him at the time. The Englishmen buried Montgomery' 
within the city. Forty-two years later his body was given to the 
Americans, who carried it, with great honors, to New York and raised 
a monument to his memory in front of St. Paul's Church. His wife, 
then a very old woman, sat alone upon the porch of her house on the 
Hudson, watching the funeral boat as it sailed by. 

The discouraged army was now placed under the command of 
Arnold, who begged Schuyler for reinforcements. In the course of the 
winter three thousand were sent to him. The English were afraid to 
risk an engagement against so heavy a force of men. The Canadians 
took neither one part or the other, with a few exceptions. A commis- 
sion, consisting of Benjamin Franklin and four other gentlemen, one of 
whom was afterwards Archbishop of Baltimore, was sent to visit Canada 
and see if a political union could not be made, but they had scarcely 
reached INIontreal when news came of a British fleet at Quebec, and 
Franklin hurried back to Philadelphia to urge the great need of 
reinforcements. These came in IMarch, under General Wooster, who 
tried for two months to make an impression upon the fortifications of 
Quebec. He failed, not from lack of courage, but from want of 
military experience. Major-General Thomas took his place, and 
decided that it was wisest to retreat. He was not permitted to do even 
this unmolested. He lost one hundred men as prisoners, as well as 
most of his stores and provisions. In a" number of small engage- 
ments which followed between detachments of both armies, the English 
troops were successful. Brigadier-General John Sullivan was sent to 
take the place of John Thomas, who, it was believed, retreated with 
unnecessary readiness. A last stand was made and an engagement 
fought, but the English had three times more men than the Americans, 
and one hundred and fifty of Sullivan's men were taken prisoners. 
They were obliged to fall back upon Ticonderoga and Crown Point. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
Fiction— Gleig's "A Day on the Neutral Ground." "In Chelsea Prison." 
Drama— "The Death of General Montgomery in Storming Quebec." Anon. 



*"^,* 



CHAPTER LIII. 



THE FEELING IN ENGLAND THE HIRING OF THE HESSIANS — ATTI- 
TUDE OF NEW YORK — THE CONFLICT WITH THE 
SOUTHERN COLONIES — THE DEFENSE 
, -■ OF FORT MOULTRIE. 




HE Parliament in England was thoroughly aroused 
by this time to the importance of subduing and 
punishing the rebels in America. The friends of 
the colonies in Parliament, Edmund Burke, Barre, 
and Wilbur, protested against the measure which 
voted the King and ministry all the men and 
material they should need in carr>'ing on the war, but no 
opposition could stem the tide of King George's impa- 
tience. He decided that the disorders in America must 
be put down. 

It was not so easy as he had supposed to obtain addi- 
tional troops. Men could not be found in England, and 
the King was forced to draw upon his garrisons in the 
West Indies, Ireland and Gibraltar. Even then the 
number was not sufficient for the successful carrying on 
of the war, and King George was forced to beg of friendly nations for 
help. To his surprise, some of these nations which he had felt sure he 
could count upon, refused him. The reply from Holland was that the 
States-General considered the Americans worthy of ever}- man's esteem, 
and looked upon them as a brave people, defending in a becoming, 
manly and religious manner those rights which, as men, they derived 
from God, not from the legislature of Great Britain, and that if soldiers 
were to be brought against them, the States-General of Holland pre- 
ferred to see Janizaries hired rather than soldiers of a free State. 
Russia, for different reasons, refused help. Frederick the Great had 
little sympathy with the English movement, and practically did not 
believe that a great State should have colonies which were severed from 



THE PALMETTO LOGS. 28 1 

it by natural obstacles. In short, the sympathy throughout Europe was 
with the Americans. The foreign troops which George III finalh' 
obtained were from the petty German princes. Among these men there 
was little voluntary service, but almost all, with the exception of the 
officers, were impressed, and a small price per head was paid by England 
to the German potentates for their services. There were 29,166 men in 
the German troops sent to America. 

The English and Americans agreed that the campaign for 1776 
must center at New York City. As soon as news of Concord and Lex- 
ington had reached New York the people had taken immediate steps to 
defend the city. The feeling there had, from the first, been as strong 
as elsewhere. The year previous, when the British garrison there had 
been ordered to join the army in Boston, the citizens consented to let 
them embark unmolested, but as the troops marched down Broad street, 
led by five carts loaded with arms, they were stopped by Marinos 
Willett, a "Son of Liberty." He seized the first horse by the head and 
brought the whole line to a stand-still. When the commanding officer 
asked what he meant by the interruption, he replied that it had been 
agreed that the troops should embark without molestation, but they had 
not been given permission to take away arms to use against their friends 
in Massachusetts. The mayor of the city and Governor Morris protested 
against Willett' s high-handed proceeding, but the sympathy of the 
crowd was with him, and the English were forced to leave without 
their arms. He then addressed the soldiers, and said if any of them 
were willing to join the ranks of liberty and desert their ranks they 
should be protected. One soldier only responded to the invitation, and 
was marched off with much cheering by the crowd. 

The Americans helped themselves to the cannon at the Batter}-, and 
placed them along the Hudson to protect the river, now that the conflict 
of '76 seemed to threaten that point. Lee was ordered by Washington 
to take command at New York. This was not a little alarming to the 
Tories of the town, who feared that this decisive action would bring 
about immediate hostilities, and that the place might be bombarded by 
the English vessels lying off the coast. There were hot internal dissen- 
sions in the city. The conflict between the Whigs and Tories was very 
bitter. The Tories were powerful and rich, but the Whigs outnum- 
bered them, and had on their side that fierce determination and sense 
of religious right which gave them their strength from the beginning to 
the end of the conflict. It must be owned that their treatment of the 
Tories was not Christian. Some of the Tories were tarred and feathered, 



282 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

some were waylaid, mobbed and insulted, while others were deprived 
of office and driven from home. Laws were enacted which inflicted 
penalties of great severity on them. It is estimated that during the 
course of the Revolution more than twenty-five thousand loyalists 
joined the military service and arrayed themselves against the patriots. 

The defenses of the city which the Whigs prepared, were, as can 
easily be imagined, accomplished under constant protest from a large 
portion of the inhabitants. When Lee assumed command of affairs 
at New York he turned all of the city into a camp of war, and 
presented as bold a face toward the threatened harbor as was possible. 
The works were strengthened, batteries were wisely placed, and the 
streets well barricaded. On March 6, 1776, Congress divided the 
southern and middle colonies into two military departments, Lee was 
sent south and Lord Stirling given the command of affairs at New 
York. He carried on Lee's work with the utmost vigor. Every male 
inhabitant of the town was put to work on the fortifications — rather 
rough work for some of the ostentatious gentlemen of New York. 
Washington himself arrived in the city on April 13, and took up his 
headquarters there. Families began leaving the town as rapidly as 
possible and the soldiers took possession of the dwellings which they 
abandoned. 

The British had other plans besides the capture of New York. They 
were anxious to move against the southern colonies, where the}- believed 
submission could be easily enforced. The Governors of Virginia and 
North Carolina labored under the delusion that most of the people in those 
colonies were loyal to the King's cause. Each Governor was provided 
with a small force to back his authority, and the King sent seven 
regiments to strengthen them. These he himself selected with great 
care. They were led by Earl Cornwallis, while the fleet was com- 
manded by Admiral Peter Parker. When they reached America, 
(xcneral Clinton was given the general command. The colonists who 
stood by Governor Martin, of North Carolina, were Scotch loyalists, 
chiefly Highlanders, who had emigrated to America after the defeat of 
the Pretender, and who still held to their oath of allegiance. The son 
and husband of F'lora McDonald were among their leaders, and with 
them were a large number of Stuarts. But the sturdy Scotch Presby- 
terians in the back counties took up anns for the patriots, and the 
Governor soon realized that matters were not to run as smoothly as he 
had expected. As soon as the Provincial militia heard of the mustering 
of McDonald's clans, they arrajed themselves to prevent them from 



THE PALMETTO LOGS. 283 

reaching the Governor. They were led by Brigadier-General James 
Moore, who had with him many gentlemen of wealth and influence. 
These walked in the ranks with the common soldiery, to keep up the 
spirits of the men. Moore's force numbered two hundred less than 
McDonald's. In the first engagement the loyalists were routed. Eight 
hundred and fifty men were taken prisoners, disarmed and discharged 
and fifteen hundred excellent rifles were secured, besides a quantity of 
money, and, what was equally valuable, a chest of medicine. This 
was practically the end of Toryism in North Carolina. Within two 
weeks the patriots had ten thousand men in arms, these prompt meas- 
ures securing peace for North Carolina until 1780. The State was at 
liberty to give its aid to the other colonies. 

The next attempt was upon South Carolina. From the first, this 
province had felt much sympathy with Massachusetts, and was now 
prompt to arise for the defense of her own border. The militia was 
ready to move at the earliest call. Those on the border of North 
Carolina were held in readiness to join the southern men, should it be 
necessary. Colonel Christopher Gadsden and William Moultrie were in 
command of the regular troops. William Thompson led a regiment of 
riflemen, all of whom were excellent marksmen — the Colonel the best 
of them all. North Carolina sent down a regiment to join them, with- 
out even waiting to be requested. The first thing seen to was the 
securing of Charleston harbor, for it was known that Clinton could do 
nothing without the aid of the men-of-war, and that these men-of-war 
could do nothing unless they held possession of the harbor. There 
were already some defences there, and these were hurriedly strength- 
ened. Sullivan's Island, a long, marshy strip of ground, well wooded, 
guarded the entrance to the harbor. Opposite was James Island, which 
was practically a part of the main coast. Gadsden was put on James 
Island and Moultrie and Thompson were put upon Sullivan's. Pennsyl- 
vania had sent down a force of men under the command of Armstrong, 
and these were placed near the city of Charleston. Every preparation 
possible was made in the town. Warehouses were torn down that the 
cannon might have full sweep. The streets were barricaded. All the 
horses, wagons and boats were impressed into service, and all the lead 
in the city was made up into bullets, the very weights of the windows 
being used. On the 4th of June, General Lee arrived and assumed 
command. The brunt of affairs rested, however, upon Colonel Moul- 
trie, who was working to complete his fortifications on Sullivan's 
Island. His men worked upon it night and day. But only the two 



284 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

sides fronting the channel were completed when the enemy attacked. 
These walls, however, were sixteen feet thick and guarded with 
palmetto logs. Into their tough and spongy fibres the balls could sink 
without doing harm. In the centre of the fort was a marsh, which the 
men left undisturbed, knowing that shells would be much less apt to 
explode if they fell into it. 

On the 31st of May the enemy appeared. Messengers were sent for 
the militia in all directions. The women and children were hastened 
out of the city. The slaves were set to completing the works. Ever>- 
freeman worked of his own accord. Lee, and other soldiers as well, had 
little confidence that Moultrie's fort could stand out against the heavy 
guns of the enemy. But Moultrie himself was confident. The land forces 
of the enemy landed on Long Island, which lay north of Sullivan's. 
These were to attack in the flank and rear while the fleet bombarded the 
fort in front. Thompson's sharpshooters were to oppose the land 
forces. The English had two 56-gun ships, five frigates of twenty-eight 
guns each, a mortar ship and two smaller vessels, bearing in all two 
hundred guns. The bombardment was continuous after it once began, 
the shot streaming steadily against the side of the fort. But the spongy 
palmetto logs could not be split and the banks of sand kept them from 
being dislodged. The shells, as had been expected, fell into the marsh 
and seldom exploded. Colonel Moultrie was inside nursing a gouty 
foot and calmly smoking as he gave orders to his intrepid men. More 
gallant defense could not have been made. When the flag of the fort — 
a blue banner with a silver crescent, bearing the word liberty — was shot 
away. Sergeant William Jasper leaped the parapet and, in the midst of 
the hottest fire, replaced it on the bastion. The men aboard the ships 
suffered terribly. Three vessels ran aground, and one of them was 
deserted and burned. Early in the evening the ships withdrew two 
miles from the island. Clinton had directed his forces at the north side 
of Sullivan's Island, but was held in check there by Thompson. A 
victory could not have been more absolute. Moultrie was accounted 
one of the successful commanders of the army. The fort was named 
after him. and his regiment was presented with a pair of beautiful 
banners. » 

FOR FURTIIKK RP;ADING; 

History — Carrington's "Battles of the Revolution." 
Coffin's "Boys of '76.'' 

Moultrie's "Memoirs of the American Revolution." 
Ramsay's "American Revolution in South Carolina." 
Poetry— Robert M. Charlton's "Death of Jasper." (See Ford's 
Historical Poems.) 



CHAPTER LIV. 



>fi$ %ms nl 



THE GROWTH OF A DESIRE FOR INDEPENDENCE — THE DECLARATION OF 
INDEPENDENCE — THE FORMING OF STATE 
, CONSTITUTIONS. 



OR a long time the people of America were 
unwilling to admit, even to themselves, that the 
Revolution was a war for independence. Frank- 
lin himself assured Pitt, in March, 1775, that, 
though he had traveled in America, he had never 
heard any expression in favor of independence. 
Even the "Sons of Liberty" were unwilling to talk 
about this matter, feeling that the people were not 
ready to accept it. The newspapers openly denounced 
the idea. Until Thomas Paine's book, "Common 
Sense," was published, the subject was almost a tabooed 
one. But that pamphlet presented a strong plea for 
independence. Men, women and children read it. It 
was for them an education — a liberator from old preju- 
dices. It gave them fresh ideas and fresh courage. The different 
States began to urge Congress to take a more decided position. Samuel 
Adams, "the Father of American Independence," saw that at last the 
country was reaching the point which he had so long been hoping for. 
Resolutions were passed in each Colonial Assembh' which heralded the 
"Declaration of Independence." On the second day of July, 1776, the 
Thirteen States, assembled in Congress, resolved unanimously "that the 
thirteen colonies are, and of right ought to be, independent States." 
Following this came deep deliberations. The matter was one in which 
there could be no hurry. All knew that if the position was once taken, 
it would be impossible to draw back from it. There were many dele- 
gates to the Congress who did not fully understand the situation, and 
who asked that all the consequences of such a step might be fully 




286 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

pointed out to them. This John Adams did, eloquently and clearly. 
At last all of the members signed the Declaration, except the delega- 
tion from New York, which had not been empowered to do so. But it 
is possible that there were many who signed with reluctance and regret. 
John Adams was elated. He wrote to his wife that the day had been 
the most memorable epoch in the history of America, and that it should 
be celebrated by succeeding generations as a great anniversary festival. 
"It ought to be solemnized," said he, "with pomp and parade, with 
games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations, from one end of 
the countr}' to the other, from this time forward forever more ;' ' and so 
till now it has been, though on the fourth of July instead of the second. 
Thomas Jefferson prepared the original draft of the Constitution, 
although he was indebted to the resolutions passed by the several 
colonies for some of his best ideas and expressions. The clause relating 
to slaver}^, which Jefferson had written, was cut out. Had it remained, 
it might have had its influence in a matter which plunged the nation 
into a yet more dreadful war than the Revolution, nearly a hundred 
years later. It was not until the eighth that the Declaration was read, 
and printed copies distributed. A great concourse of people gathered 
about the observatory of the State House, in Philadelphia, and here the 
Declaration was read to them from the balcony by John Nixon, a mem- 
ber of the "Committee of Safety." 

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 
In Congress^ July ^, 1^76. 

The Unanimous Declaration of the Thirteen United 
States of America: 

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one 
people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with 
another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate 
and equal station to which the laws of nature and nature's God entitle 
them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they 
should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold 
these truths to be self-evident: That all men are created equal; that they 
are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that 
among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to 
secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving 
their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any 
form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of 
the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, 



THE SONS OF LIBERTY. 287 

laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in 
such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and 
happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long 
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, 
accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed 
to suffer while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolish- 
ing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of 
abuses and usurpation, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a 
design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is 
their duty, to throw off such a government, and to provide new guards 
for their future security. Such has been the patient suffering of these 
colonies, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter 
their former system of government. The history of the present King 
of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all 
having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over 
these States. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. 

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary 
for the public good. 

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and 
pressing importance, unless suspended in their operations till his assent 
should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to 
attend to them. 

He has refused to pass other laws for the accomodation of large 
districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of 
representation in the legislature — a right inestimable to them, and 
formidable to tyrants only. 

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncom- 
fortable and distant from the repository of their public records, for the 
sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. 

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly for opposing, 
with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. 

He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause 
others to be elected, whereby the legislative powers, incapable of 
annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise, the 
State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the dangers of invasion 
from without and convulsions within. 

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States — for 
that purpose, obstructing the laws for the naturalization of foreigners, 
refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising 
the conditions of new appropriations of lands. 



288 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his 
assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. 

He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of 
their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. 

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of 
officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. 

He has kept among us, in time of peace, standing armies, without 
the consent of our legislatures. 

He has affected to render the militar}' independent of, and superior 
to, the civil power. 

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign 
to our Constitution and unacknowledged by our laws, giving his assent 
to their acts of pretended legislation; for quartering large bodies of 
armed troops among us; for protecting them, by a mock trial, from 
punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabi- 
tants of these States; for imposing taxes on us without our consent; 
for depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jur>^; for 
transporting us beyond the seas to be tried for pretended offences; for 
abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, 
establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its bounda- 
ries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing 
the same absolute rule into these colonies; for taking away our charters, 
abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering, fundamentally, the 
forms of governments; for suspending our own legislatures, and 
declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases 
whatever. 

He has abdicated government here by declaring us out of his 
protection, and waging war against us. 

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, 
and destroyed the lives of our people. 

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries 
to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny already begun, 
with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the 
most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized 
nation. 

He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high 
seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of 
their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. 

He has excited domestic insurrection among us, and has endeavored 
to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, 



THE SONS OF LIBERTY. 289 

whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all 
ages, sexes and conditions. 

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in 
the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only 
by repeated injur}-. A prince whose character is thus marked by every 
act which may define a t}Tant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. 

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. 
We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts by their legisla- 
ture to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have 
reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement 
here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and 
we have conjured them by the ties of a common kindred to disavow 
these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and 
correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and 
consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity which 
denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of man- 
kind — enemies in war; in peace, friends. 

We, therefore, representatives of the United States of America, in 
general congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the 
World for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name and by the 
authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and 
, declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free 
and independent States; that they are absolved from all allegiance to 
the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and 
the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved; and 
that as free and independent States^ they have full power to levy war, 
conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and do all other 
acts and things which independent States may of right do. And for 
the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of 
Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our 
fortunes, and our sacred honor. John Hancock. 

New Hampshire. — Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew 
Thornton. 

Massachusetts Bay. — Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat 
Paine, Elbridge Gerr}'. 

Rhode Island., etc. — Stephen Hopkins, William Ellery. 

Connecticut. — Robert Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William 
Williams, Oliver Wolcott. 

Neiv York. — William Floyd, Philip Livingstone, Francis Lewis^ 
Lewis Morris. 



290 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



New Jersey. — Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hop- 
kinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark. 

Pennsylvania. — Robert INIorris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, 
John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James 
Wilson, George Ross. 

Delaicare. — Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas M. Kean. 

Maryland. — Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles 
Carroll, of CarroUton. 

Virginia. — George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, 
Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter 
Braxton. 

North Carolina. — William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn. 

South Carolina. — Edward Rutledge, Thomas Hay ward, Jr., Thomas 
Lynch, Jr., Arthur iVIiddleton. 

Georgia. — Button Gwinnett, L>nian Hall, George Walton. 




OLD I.inERTY BELL. 



Through the country, wherever the declaration was received, it 
awoke great excitement. In New York, a mob pulled down the gilded 
leaden equestrian statue of King George. The head was severed from 
the body and wheeled in a barrel to the Governor's house. The rest 
of the statue was moulded b\' a company of ladies into forty-two 



THE SONS OF LIBERTY. 



291 



thousand bullets, which were to be shot at the King's soldiers. Penn- 
sylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina 
adopted State constitutions in 1776; New York, South Carolina and 
Georgia in 1777; Massachusetts in 1780 and New Hampshire in 1781. 
Connecticut and Rhode Island continued to use their royal charters as 
the law of the States. Not till 181 8 did Connecticut adopt a State 
constitution, and Rhode Island waited until 1840. Few of the consti- 
tutions admitted religious liberty. The constitution of South Carolina 
said "that no person shall be capable of holding any place of honor, 
trust or profit under the authority of this State, who is not a member 
of some church of the established religion thereof" The constitution 
of Penns\-lvania required every member of the legislature to declare not 
only his belief in the existence of a God who is a rewarder of good and 
a punisher of evil, but also to believe that the Scriptures are given by 
Divine inspiration. The constitution of New Hampshire stipulated 
that the members of its legislature should be of the Protestant religion. 
The constitution of Massachusetts provided against luxury, plays, 
extravagant expense in dress, diet, and the like. Every minister or 
public teacher of religion was obliged, in Massachusetts, to read the 
Constitution to his congregation once a year, 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Winsor's "Readers' Hand-book of the Revolution." 
Biography — Goodrich's "Lives of Signers of the Declaration." 
Fiction — John Neal's "Seventv-six." 

H. C. Watson's "Old Bell of Independence." 
Poetry — Charles Sprague's "Fourth of July." (See Ford's Historical Poeni.j 




HOUSE in which the DECL.\K.\riON 



INDEPENDENCE WAS SIGNED. 



CHAPTER LV. 



.},a Winsnlals. 



WASHINGTON AT NEW YORK — ARRIVAL OF THIRTY-TWO THOUSAND 

BRITISH TROOPS OVERTURES FOR PEACE BY THE 

BRITISH — BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND — THE 
BATTLE OF HARLEM HEIGHTS — DE- 
STRUCTION OF NEW YORK — 
BATTLE OF WHITE 
PLAINS. 



WASHINGTON was anxious to hold New York 
pennanently, and he believed that it could be 
done. He continued the work which Lee had 
begun. Governor's Island, Fort Stirling and 
Long Island were well fortified and manned. 
Strong works were built upon the Palisades and 
three water batteries were also built along the 
shore of the Hudson. By June eighty pieces of cannon 
and mortars were mounted, bearing upon the bay and 
the two river channels. It was not until the last of 
June that the enemy arrived. The first to come was 
Sir William Howe, commander-in-chief, with his Boston 
army. Governor Tryon, of New York, and many 
loyalists, went out to meet him. The troops followed 
in one hundred and thirty ships, and by June 29th all 
were in the bay. They debarked upon Staten Island, and here the 
General took up his headquarters. Admiral Howe, Sir William's 
brother, followed with some troops, and on August 12th the Hesssian 
arrived. These forces numbered altogether thirty-two thousand men. 
Washington had upon his rolls about nineteen thousand. Under 
Howe's command were many distinguished officers, men of high 
breeding, intelligence and bravery-. The English and Hessian soldiers 
were well trained. De Heister, the general of the Hessians, had been 




THE CONTINENTALS. 293 

in many European campaigns. Among the Hessians was a famous 
company of sharpshooters, under Donop. Even those Hessians who 
had come against their will and who were not used to bearing arms had 
still warlike traditions, and they were surrounded by such good material 
that their inexperience did not greatly lessen the strength of the force. 
As for Washington's men, they were made up of farmers, merchants, min- 
isters and mechanics. They were brave, but lacking in discipline and 
an understanding of war. They were without uniforms, a thing which 
is always depressing to the soldier, and were poorly equipped, the old 
flint-lock piece being the common arm. Bayonets were few. These 
men, in motley array, presented but a poor contrast to the elegantly 
costumed Englishman, and the Hessian, with his brass-pointed cap, his 
brass-hilted sword and glittering bayonet. General Washington's 
headquarters overlooked the Hudson, near Varick. Admiral Howe 
and his brother said that they had come bringing the olive branch of 
peace, and on July 14th sent a flag of truce up the bay with a letter to the 
commander-in-chief. The generals sent out to receive this letter found 
that it was addressed to George Washington, Esq. , and returned it with 
the remark that there was no such man in the American army. On 
the 20th another flag of truce was sent up with a message to his Excel- 
lency, General Washington. This was received and read with atten- 
tion, but Washington could entertain no proposition for peace which 
did not acknowledge American independence. An interview was held 
between Lord Howe and a committee of Congress, which came to nothing, 
because Howe had not been empowered by the King to admit the inde- 
pendence of the colonies. On August 20th all of the British troops were 
moved over to Long Island. The sight was an exhilarating' one. 
Nearly ninety boats and flat-boats were filled with the best troops of the 
army, the glittering arms, the artillery and handsome horses, making 
a display which that harbor has never seen excelled. Fifteen thousand 
men took possession of the roads of the island and occupied the Dutch 
village, while General Cornwallis and Donop' s sharpshooters drove back 
the Pennsylvania riflemen who had been patrolling the coast. Gen- 
eral Green was in command of the Americans at Long Island, and 
had surrounded himself with strong earthworks thrown up in what is 
now the heart of Brooklyn. On what is now Washington Park stood 
Fort Putnam, at the crown of the hill. The ridge of hills which lay 
between the Brooklyn lines and the coast of Gravesend Bay was made 
the outer line of defense by Washington. Several regiments were 
brought over from New York to reinforce the Brooklyn wing. General 



294 



THK STORY OK AMKRICA. 



Green was ill with a fever which was raging among the soldiers, and 
his command fell npon General Snllivan. Early on the morning of 
August 27th the American guards were unexpectedh- attacked by the 




NCK HALL. 



English. The day had not yet broken, and in the confusion the 
American pickets retreated, leaving their major a prisoner with the 



THE COXTIXEXTAI.S. 295 

enemy. Reinforcements soon arrived and the men held to a steady 
resistance, although most of them were untried and raw. Against the 
seventeen hundred inexperienced troops of Lord Stirling were placed 
at least six thousand English veterans. The Americans took advantage 
of an orchard near by and the heavy growth of hedges to protect them. 
Stirling was making a fair defense, when Generals Clinton, Cornwallis, 
Howe and Earl Percy came up with their men. These marched 
well around the American lines before they were observed. Two 
battalions fell into the hands of the English. The rest of the Ameri- 
cans retreated toward the Brooklyn camp, fighting as they went. 
General Sullivan was captured. The Hessians marched on rapidly 
after the retreat had begun, attacking the broken detachments. Ten 
thousand British and four thousand Hessians chased less than three 
thousand Americans through tlie woods and over the hills of Long 
Island, but most of the Americans succeeded in getting behind the 
works. Stirling still held the field with an organized force. They 
were surrounded and obliged to surrender to the Hessian commander, 
De Heister. Two other regiments were captured as well. The English 
loss was three hundred and seventy-seven ofificers and soldiers. The 
American loss in killed and wounded was less than three hundred, but 
they had given between eight hundred and one thousand prisoners into 
the hands of the enemy. 

On the afternoon of the 29th a council of the general officers met 
Washington, and it was decided to retreat from Long Island. For 
twelve hours the troops were ferried across, in the midst of serious 
interruptions. There was still doubt as to whether it would be wise to 
continue the defense of New York, and at one time the Americans 
thought seriously of burning it before they deserted it. For two weeks 
there was comparative quiet. Had Howe chosen, he might have 
destroyed New York himself, but he, as well as Washington, concluded 
that it would be w^ser to let it remain unharmed. Washington, after 
considering how insubordinate his soldiers were becoming, concluded 
not to continue the defence of New York. The men were sadly 
discouraged by the disaster at Long Island, and they were neither well 
paid nor well fed. The disorders were many, and some of the men 
were so homesick that, though they remained faithful to their posts, 
they could not be relied upon for vigorous fighting. Fortunately, 
Washington's call for fresh men was responded to and he was able to 
allow some of his disabled men to return to their homes. On the 2d 
of February Washington's army numbered less than twenty thousand. 



296 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

New York was to be evacuated on the 15th, and the activity of the 
city for a few days previous could easily be observed by the English. 
Howe was prompt to move his ships up closer to the city, and about 10 
o'clock on the morning of the day appointed for the removal, these 
ships opened fire. Under cover of this, Donop's Hessian sharpshooters 
crossed to New York and chased the Americans over the fields to 
Murrav Hill. Washington and his men rode out in a vain attempt to 
rally the militia. Even those of the men who were willing to fight, 
could make no stand against the headlong and terrified rout of the 
majority. Washington was worked up to one of those fierce spasms of 
anger for which narrow-minded people have so often criticised him. It 
is said that he drew his sword and threatened to run some fugitives 
through, and that he laid his cane over many of the officers who showed 
their men the example of running. He dashed his hat on the ground 
and cried, ''Are these the men with whom I am to defend America." 
So disgusted was he and so regardless of his life, that had not one of 
his attendants seized his horse's reins and turned him toward Harlem 
Heights, the General would probably have fallen into the enemy's 
hands. It is said that Putnam and Aaron Burr gathered up a portion 
of the soldiers, and by the most extraordinary exertions marched up the 
west side of the island through the woods and brought the men to Harlem 
Heights in safety when night had fallen. Howe was close upon this 
column in pursuit, and might have overtaken them, but for the 
exertions of a charming Quaker lady, Mrs. Murray. The General and 
his staff" stopped at her door to ask how long since the Americans had 
passed. Mrs. Murray replied that they were long since out of reach, 
and begged that General Howe and his followers would come in and 
rest from the heat. Mrs. Murray and her daughter treated them with 
cake and wine, and held the men by their quaint Quaker coquetry for 
two hours. As a matter of fact the Americans had not been gone ten 
minutes when Howe inquired for their whereabouts. 

A terrible rain fell that night. The patriot soldiers were without 
shelter. They had lost their provisions, cannons and baggage. The 
generals were not in a mood for giving them much sympathy for they 
felt that a more ready courage and obedience would have saved the 
day. There was a brisk engagement in the morning which was fairly 
well fought, and put some fresh spirit into the anny. Early on the 
morning of the i6th occurred the battle of Harlem Heights, in which 
Washington himself directed the movements. He succeeded here in 
driving the English regulars in an open field — an experience new to 



THE CONTINENTALS. 297 

the American soldiers. In this engagement the Americans lost four 
valuable leaders. But the troops were reanimated, and Washington set 
great store by the influence of this victory upon their minds. 

New York was now entirely in the possession of the English. On 
the 2ist it was nearly destroyed by fire, though not intentionally. 
Five hundred buildings were burned, and it is supposed that several 
women and children perished in the flames. The Americans were 
suspected of setting the fire and about two hundred of them were 
arrested. Most of them were discharged as soon as examined. One 
man was hanged. This was Captain Nathan Hale, of Connecticut, a 
patriot of great courage and influence. He had volunteered to go 
within the British lines at Long Island and obtain information concern- 
ing the forces of the enemy, which was absolutely necessary to 
Washington. He was captured, and papers found upon him which 
showed his purpose. He did not at any time deny that he was a spy. 
He was hung without any trial, and was not even permitted to see a 
clergyman or use a Bible in his last hours. The letters he had written 
to his mother and sister were burnt. History has placed him among 
the honored men of America. 

There was quiet for a few weeks, and it was not until the 12th of 
October that Howe was ready to renew hostile measures. The position 
of the Americans at Harlem Heights had been strengthened, but the 
Commander-in-chief feared that they could not be held, with the 
exception of Fort Washington. This was filled with a good garrison. 
The majority of the troops were scattered along the hills west of the 
Brown river, which runs nearly parallel to the Hudson. The army 
were disposed here in position to face the enemy. Washington held 
White Plains and the roads leading up the Hudson and to New Eng- 
land. The English moved up in two columns — an impressive sight to 
Washington and his officers, who looked down upon them from the 
hills. At the time of Howe's approach the troops were disposed along 
the brow of a steep declivity. The enemy came clambering straight 
up the ascent, but recoiled under the hot fire with which they were 
received. They made a second attempt and were again forced to 
retreat, but in the third rush they were successful, and drove the 
Americans before them. All through the retreat the patriots kept up 
a steady fire from behind trees and fences, and at the close of the day 
the loss of the English was much greater than that of the Americans. 
Within the next two or three days Washington withdrew his army to a 
position on the North Castle heights, which was so strong that Howe 



298 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

did not attempt to capture it. He now turned his attention to Fort 
Washington. On the I5tn of November Howe demanded a surrender 
of the fort, threatening that if he was obliged to take it by assault the 
garrison would be put to the sword. Magaw, who was commanding 
the Pennsy Iranians holding the fort, replied that he preferred to defend 
it. So insulting a demand for surrender would probably have deter- 
mined him to .this course, even if he had not previously intended it. 
The fight was a hot one. The American forces were scattered over the 
hills, along the shore of the river, and about the fort. All of these 
were finally crowded into the fort. Magaw was obliged to surrender, 
but it was upon honorable terms. The loss of the English anny was 
three times as great as that of the Americans. Fort Lee was also forced 
to surrender. The Americans withdrew to the other side of the 
Hackensack river. Howe commanded the entrance to the Hudson. 
Washington believed that the British would follow their successes 
about New York by an immediate attack upon Philadelphia. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
Fiction — J. R. Siinms' "The American Spy." 

Alden's "Old Store House." 
Poetry — F. C. Finch's "Nathan Hale." 
Drama— D. Krumbell's "Death of Captain Nathan Hale." 




O bo 






^ 



CHAPTER LVI. 



THE JERSEY CAMPAIGN — THE BATTLE OF TRENTON — THE BATTLE OF 

PRINCETON — WINTER ENCAMPMENT OF WASHINGTON 

AT MORRISTOWN. 




WASHINGTON left a part of his force to hold the 
the posts which they still retained at the north, 
and took Putnam, Green, Stirling and Mercer 
southward with him. The entire force which 
accompanied him was less than four thousand. 
He wrote to Governor Livingstone, of New Jer- 
sey, telling him to prepare for an invasion of 
his territory, and asking the people to remove their 
stock, grain and other possessions out of the reach of 
the enemy. The treatment of the people in the villages 
of New York, by the English, had been merciless, and 
Washington wished to prevent, as far as he could, 
another scene of such desolation. Washington was 
anxious about the condition of his army. The enlist- 
ment terms of his men were short, and by the first of December Wash- 
ington would have but two thousand men with him. The two armies 
moved through northern New Jersey, Washington always a little in 
advance of Cornwallis. The two Howes, as peace commissioners, 
offered pardon to all who had taken up arms against the king, if they 
would return quietly to their homes. This offer held good for sixty 
days, and many in New Jersey and Pennsylvania accepted it. As the 
British moved on through the towns, they took possession of horses, 
cattle, wagons and whatever else they desired. Washington kept a 
close outlook, and steadily retreated. His intention was to make a 
stand for the protection of Philadelphia. Fearing that at any time he 
might be forced to retreat into Pennsylvania, he had boats in readiness 
at Trenton, and, to keep the English from pursuing him, he ordered 



300 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



that all sorts of craft should be removed from the Jersey side, for 
seventy miles up and down the Delaware river. The American force 
crossed the Delaware just as the English entered Trenton. The two 
armies moved southward. Congress thought it unsafe to remain in 
Philadelphia, and adjourned to meet in Baltimore. Washington was in 
great need of reinforcements, and kept sending commands to Lee, who 
was at the north, to join him with his forces. But Lee was envious of 
Washington's position, and desired to be first in command himself. He 
paid no attention to the commands, although they were imperative, and 
it was a fortunate thing for the army when he was finally taken 




WASHINGTON ON THE HUDSON. 



prisoner b}- a compau)- of British dragoons. His command fell to 
General Sullivan, who lost no time in obeying Washington's orders, 
and reached headquarters just sixteen days after the first command was 
sent to Lee. Howe swept on through the countr>-, the Americans 
hurr\ing before him. The Pennsylvania and New Jensey men had gone 
to their homes, their term of enlistment having expired. The patriot 
troops were thoroughly dispirited. Washington felt that warm action 
was necessary, even though it might be risky. He decided to fix 
Christmas day as the date of an attempt upon Trenton. The British 
were confident that rebellion was about put down in America. They 



BATTLE FIELD AND BIVOUAC. 3OI 

had scattered themselves widely over the country, partly to a£ford pro- 
tection to the loyal inhabitants and partly to keep recruits from joining 
the American army. The men were quartered in companies of twelve 
and fifteen to a house, all through the farm district, and were given 
over to plunder of the most vicious sort. Barbarians could not have 
been more merciless. The wanton destruction of property was the 
least of their offences. The English had acquired a thorough contempt 
for Washington's army. They no longer felt fear or any need of watch- 
fulness. 

Situated at Trenton was Rahl, with twelve hundred men. Against 
these men Washington meant to move, Cornwallis was so confident 
that the campaign was over that he had obtained leave of absence, and 
had already reached New York, on his way to England. It was upon this 
lack of suspicion that Washington relied for the success of his plan. 
He determined to cross the Delaware at night above and below Trenton, 
to fall upon Rahl and his Hessians, capture them, and recross before he 
could be overtaken. That Donop and his sharpshooters, who were 
below Trenton, might have their attention engaged, a body of militia 
kept up a skirmish which drew off part of his force eighteen miles. 
General John Cadwallader was directed by Washington to cross the 
Delaware at Bristol, with a force of Pennsylvanians, and General 
Ewing was told to cross directly opposite Trenton. The main column, 
landing nine miles north of Trenton, at McConkey's ferry, was to be 
led by Washington himself When the night came it was found unfa- 
vorable. Both Cadwallader and Ewing were unsuccessful in their 
efforts to cross, for the ice was piled up high on the Delaware shore. 
But Washington made up his mind that he would act, even though he 
was obliged to do so without support. The troops in his immediate 
command he felt that he could trust. Twenty-four hundred men 
composed the expedition. Most of them had seen service, and they 
were led by valiant men, but the difficulties they had to contend with 
now were not common ones. There was a driving storm, which half 
blinded the troops and threatened to make the guns useless. The 
current of the river was swift and filled with cakes of floating ice. The 
gentlemen who composed Washington's staff were filled with a courage 
which was almost gay. All the way across the treacherous river they 
encouraged the troops in every manner possible. The boats were 
manned by Massachusetts fishermen, who were natural sailors, and 
among the best soldiers of the war. Washington had hoped to be on 
the Jersey shore by midnight, but it was four in the morning before 



302 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

troops and cannons were safely landed. It was too late to retreat, how- 
ever, and there was nothing to do but to push on, although there was 
no longer hope of surprising the town. The road was slippery, and 
many of the men were nearly barefoot, but among the troops were the 
most experienced and tried men of the army, and no complaints were 
made. At Birmingham village the troops were divided, so that the}- 
might march around the town in two columns. It was found that the 
])riming of the muskets had become too wet to use in many cases. Wash- 
ington gave orders for the men to fight with bayonets. The Hessian 
outposts were surprised. A detachment of Americans, led by Lieu- 
tenant James Monroe, dashed in among them and was soon within 
Trenton. Sullivan had led the men up the lower road and had 
succeeded in surprising the outposts there as well. The Hessians made 
an attempt to form in the streets, but Washington himself directed the 
guns which cleared them away. Rahl had been indulging in Christmas 
festivities through the night, and neither he nor his men were clear- 
headed enough to do their best. They ran for their lives and were 
checked at ever>^ quarter. In a short time they were compelled to lay 
down their arms. Rahl, their lieutenant, was mortally wounded, but 
lived long enough to give up his sword to Washington. The Ameri- 
cans took nine hundred and fifty prisoners and six guns, and killed 
seventeen and wounded nearly eighty of the enemy. Their own loss 
was only two killed and four wounded. By evening Washington had 
recrossed the Delaware, and by the 30th he had mustered his whole 
force in the neighborhood of Trenton. 

Cornwallis was determined to have revenge for the Trenton aflfair. 
He gathered all his available forces at Princeton, and on January 2, 1777, 
marched with his seven thousand men upon Trenton. They succeeded 
in cooping the Americans up there in a position which Washington 
recognized at once as being very perilous. To cross the Delaware in the 
presence of the enemy and retreat once more into Pennsylvania was 
impossible. Between Trenton and McConkey's ferr>' lay a part of the 
English army. In any position for battle his flanks could easily be 
turned, for the enemy outnumbered him. In a council of war a for- 
tunate plan was hit upon. It was to follow an almost unused road and 
to reach Princeton secretly, if possible, in the night, and so escape from 
the trap in which they were at present caught. General St. Clair 
attended to all the details of preparation. Along the front of the camp 
the appearance of an army at rest was kept up. The guards were 
relieved, the camp fires were kept burnnig, and every semblance of 



BATTLE FIELD AND BIVOUAC. 303 

peaceful encampment sustained. As a matter of fact, the troops were 
quietly marching along what was called the Quaker Road towards 
Princeton. The ground was frozen and the artillery moved without 
trouble. Washington went with them in the midst of his guard, which 
was composed of twenty-one gentlemen of fortune, from Philadelphia, 
who were volunteers to the army and paid their own way. In the 
morning Cornwallis awoke to the realization that his prey had escaped, 
and that the Trenton affair was still unavenged. But before the success 
of the manoeuvre was assured there occured a brisk engagement between 
General Mercer's men and a detachment of the English. This was 
known as the battle of Princeton. In it the English were routed, losing 
sixty killed and many wounded, besides one hundred and fifty prisoners. 
The American loss was small. General Mercer had been unhorsed, and 
on refusing to surrender, was bayoneted on all sides while he fought 
single-handed with his sword. He died a day or two later. Not a few 
of the men died from the effects of that night march through the bitter 
wind. They went without rest or provisions for two days and nights, 
and all of them were insufficiently clothed. As soon as Cornwallis 
learned that the enemy was at Princeton, he marched his soldiers in 
hasty pursuit, and entered that town just an hour after the Americans 
had left it. Washington took up winter quarters at Morristown. There 
was a feeling of general satisfaction throughout the United Colonies, for 
though the army had met with many disasters, it had succeeded in 
holding the English well in check. It was now seated in the very 
heart of New Jersey, which at one time everyone felt sure that the 
enemy would overrun. True, Howe held New York, but he had been 
obliged to abandon his plans against Philadelphia. Cornwallis and 
Howe had been outgeneraled and their veteran troops had suffered 
severely at the hands of the raw militia. George Washington was 
recognized as a great soldier, patient, discreet, ingenious and brave. 
Europe, and even England, were obliged to admit the dignity of the 
American Revolution, and to recognize the fact that the world had a 
new nation. 

FOR FURTHER READING : 
Biography — G. W. Greene's "L,ife of General Green." 
Fiction — C. J. Peterson's "Kate Aylesford." 

Paulding's "Old Continental." 
Poetry— "Battle of Trenton." (See Ford's Historical Poem.) 
C. F. Ome's "Washington at Princeton." 



CHAPTER LVII. 



M}^$ "f Bar of l^a M}^v$z §dhms. 

STATE OF THE AMERICAN ARMY — ^THE PENNSYLVANIA CAMPAIGN- 
THE BATTLE OF KRAND\'WINE — "THE PAOLI MASSA- 
CRE" — THE BRITISH AT PHILADELPHIA — THE 
BATTLE AT GERMANTOWN — WASH- 
INGTON WINTERS AT 
VALLEY FORGE. 



N April, 1777, General Howe demanded of Wash- 
ington a return for a number of ofl&cers and 
twenty-two hundred privates whom he had released 
and sent within the American lines. Washington 
refused to make an exchange which would be 
equal in numbers, for he said that the enemy had 
broken the spirit of the contract made concerning 
prisoners. He accused Howe of great injustice and 
cruelty, and said that many of the prisoners, when 
released, were in so weak a state that they died before 
reaching their homes, or immediately afterward. In 
exchange for these suffering men, broken in body and 
mind, Washington did not propose to make a return of 
an equal number of able-bodied Englishmen. As a 
matter of fact, the American prisoners met with terrible treatment. As 
soon as they were taken they were robbed of their baggage, their 
money and their clothes. Many of them were kept upon the prison 
ships, which were terribly overcrowded, with only one-third the 
allowance of food which they should have had. It is said that at least 
eleven thousand five hundred men died upon the prison ships. Wash- 
ington continued to refuse an equal exchange of men for the melancholy 
creatures who were sent him, almost none of whom were able to be 
placed in the field again. This was a great disappointment to Washing- 
ton, for he was in serious need of men. The term of many of his 




THE YEAR OF THE THREE GALLOWS. 305 

regiments had expired, and in the spring of 1777 he did not have four 
tliousand names on his muster-roll. The difficulty of procuring 
munitions of war was as serious as that of procuring men. Arms were 
scarce and gunpowder almost unattainable. But for France, it is 
doubtful if the war could have been carried on. In spite of her treaty 
with Great Britain, France was friendly to the American cause. 
Though the French minister deeply deplored to the English government 
the aid which the people of France were giving to the American 
patriots, he took care to remain ignorant of what was actually being 
done. Large supplies of powder, cannon and field equipage were 
shipped from France and allowed to leave without hindrance from the 
government. Benjamin Franklin, Silas Deane and Arthur Lee were 
sent by Congress to France, and these asked the King to recognize the 
independence of the United States. He would not do this, although 
he expressed his good will and ordered two million livres to be paid 
them by quarterly payments. Spain secretly joined France in helping 
the colonies, and contributed one million livres, but she was not willing 
to be known in the matter. 

It is not necessay to relate in detail all the numerous and unimportant 
skirmishes which took place at different points between the Americans 
and the English. During the spring of 1777 the English burnt a 
number of villages, and Governor Tyron, who was now Major-General 
of the Provincials, did some disastrous work through Connecticut. 
Each of those engagements between the opposing forces has left many 
interesting traditions, but to cite them all, or even the best of them, 
would be a task too great to undertake. In May, Long Island was the 
scene of some determined fighting, the hostilities reaching as far as Sag 
Harbor. General Prescott, of the English army, was captured, and 
Washington hoped that he might be exchanged for Lee, whom it will 
be remembered was in the hands of the English. Lee was still believed 
in by many people, although he had offered to sell himself and his 
plans to the English and had for months been disloyal to his country. 
By the 28th of May, Washington broke camp, moving to the southeast 
that he might be in a better position to watch Howe's movements. 
The patriot army had now increased to seven thousand. Sullivan was 
in command of the continentals at Princeton, and the first move of 
the English army was to send Cornwallis to attack this town. Sullivan 
fell back and was not overtaken. Cornwallis tried to bring Washington 
into action, but failed. A little later he succeeded in taking three 
cannons and two hundred prisoners from General Stirling, but on the 



3o6 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



30th the English withdrew and crossed in a body to Staten Island. 
For six weeks they made no move, and Washington was unable to guess 
what their intentions might be. On the 23d of July, Howe set sail 
from New York, with eighteen thousand men, leaving six thousand in 
the city, under Clinton. A week later the English fleet appeared in 
the Delaware, but Washington had put such good obstructions there 
that it again put out to sea. Washington was as anxious as he was 
curious. He feared that it might be Howe's intention to move upon 
Charleston, and knew that defences could not reach the city in time to 
be of help. When next the fleet was heard of it was ofl" the Chesapeake, 




MARQUIS MARIE JOSKPH PAUL DE LAFAYETTE. 

and Washington was reassured by the reflection that Howe's intention 
must still be to move upon Philadelphia. At this time Washington's 
army was joined by several foreign officers, who distinguished them- 
selves in their devotion to the American cause. Among- them were 
Lafayette and Baron John De Kalb. De Kalb and Lafayette were 
commissioned by Congress. Lafayette was very young — indeed he had 
not yet reached his majority — and it was only when he assured 
Congress that he had come as a volunteer and would pay his own 
expenses, that he was commissioned. The very ship in which he had 



THE YEAR OF THE THREE GALLOWS. 307 

brought his men had been purchased and fitted out at his own expense. 
Washington marched his army through Philadelphia on the 2 2d of 
August. Howe was pushing his army through Pennsylvania. On the 
loth of September Washington determined to hinder his further 
progress. At this time Howe was on the bank of the Brandywine 
river, commanding the principal forts. The engagement was a general 
one all along the lines. The Americans were finally forced to retreat. 
Their loss was three hundred killed and five hundred wounded. The 
English loss was less than six hundred in killed and wounded. 
Lafayette distinguished himself, and received a wound in the leg which 
kept him confined to his quarters for two months. The American 
army retreated the following day towards Pennsylvania and German- 
town. On the 15th of September it crossed the Schuylkill. Here 
Howe advanced upon them. Anthony Wayne was in the American 
advance and was quite willing for a battle, but a drenching rain stonn 
put an end to it. On the 19th of September Wayne was at Paoli, and 
within sight of Howe's encampment. He saw that the army was 
quietly engaged in camp occupations and told Washington that if he 
would come to his aid with the whole army he believed that a deadly 
blow might be dealt them. The intention was to move upon them in 
the night. Wayne had fixed midnight for the time of his movement. 
The watchword in his camp was "Here we are and there they go," but 
it proved to be a watchword without a signification, for, two hours 
before midnight Howe did exactly the thing which Wayne was 
intending to do. The British fell upon the American camp, firing no 
shots, but using their bayonets. The Americans were in the light of 
their camp-fires, and the British in the protection of the shadow. 
Wayne's men ran in confusion through the dark woods. Nearly one 
hundred and seventy were killed. This is known as the Paoli massacre. 
At 1 o'clock that nighi an aid-de-camp dashed into Philadelphia 
with a message from Washington that the enemy had crossed the 
Schuylkill and would be in the town in a few hours. The news spread 
through the town wildly and the people were roused out of their beds 
to hurry from the place. A patrol was put in the streets to guard 
against fire. It was over a week before Howe marched into the city. 
His troops were received with loud cheers by the Tories. 

Washington learned a few days later that Howe had sent a small 
detachment to reduce the American forts on the Delaware. Washington 
decided that this was a good opportunity to strike an effectual blow. 
Howe's army was encamped in a long, straight line, to which there 



3o8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

were four approaches. Washington's plan was to advance on all four 
roads and engage the enemy along the whole line at the same moment. 
The attack was to be made at precisely 5 o'clock on the morning of the 
4th of October. On the evening of the 3d the American army left its 
encampment and marched all night. They reached the points aimed 
at about daybreak on the 4th. The morning was misty and they were 
upon the outposts of the enemy before their approach was known. 
The Americans were in good fighting mood. Their cr\' was to revenge 
the Paoli massacre. A part of the English lines broke, and the day 
might have been won, but that in the fog and smoke the Americans 
mistook their own lines for those of the enemy, and did serious injury 
among themselves, delaying the general movement. The battle was 
lost and Washington ordered a retreat. A thousand men had been left 
behind, while the English lost not more than five hundred. But Howe 
was alarmed, nevertheless, and withdrew his army into the city. He 
was in doubt where to take up his winter quarters. The Delaware 
river was commanded by the Americans and it was not easy, therefore, 
to obtain provisions. The Schuylkill was seriously impeded by 
obstructions and by floating batteries along the shore. Howe sent 
Colonel Donop, with his Hessian sharpshooters, to reduce Fort Mercer. 
Donop made a furious assault, but both he and his lieutenant-colonel 
were killed, as well as four hundred Hessians. The two British ships, 
which had moved up the river to aid in the assault, ran aground. One 
was blown up by the fire from the fort and the other burnt to escape 
capture. But Howe still felt that he could not afford to let the enemy 
retain possession of the Delaware river. On the 19th of November the 
British fleet was brought to bear upon Fort Mifflin. The garrison 
there made a sturdy fight, but could not hold out against the heavy 
guns of the vessels, and they were obliged to take refuge on the other 
side of the river, in Fort Mercer, having had two hundred and fifty out 
of four hundred either killed or wounded. Comwallis now moved 
into New Jersey, at the head of so large a force that even Fort Mercer 
had to be deserted. The Delaware, below Philadelphia, was now under 
the control of the British fleet. Washington took up his winter 
quarters at Valley Forge, and it is said that the march of his army over 
the frozen ground could be tracked bv the blood from their uncovered 
feet. 

FOR rURTHER READING: 
History — Cooper's "History of the American Na\'y." 
Fiction— Cooper's "Pilot." 

J. R. Jones' "yiiaker Soldier." 
E. H. Williamson's "The yuaker Partisans." 
Poetry— Carleton's "Little Black-eyed Rebel." 



CHAPTER LVIII. 



mllBrsh 



innquBrnrs. 



WASHINGTON'S CAMP AT VALLEY FORGE — NEGLECT OF CONGRESS — 

THE CONWAY CABAL — GENERAL STEUBEN — BURGOYNE 

IN THE NORTH — THE SIEGE OF TICON- 

DEROGA — THE BATTLE OF 

ORISKANY 



winter at Valley Forge was a drear)- one. 
Congress neglected the soldiers woefully. For 
months they were left to suffer with hunger, cold, 
and disease. They slept without blankets, many 
of them sitting all night by their camp-fires. At 
one time there were more than a thousand of 
'them without shoes. Even the sick had to lie on the 
ground without even a bunch of straw under them. 
There were but few horses, and the soldiers themselves 
drew their wood and provisions to their huts in little 
carts. It was very seldom that the troops received any 
money, and when they did, it was in Continental cur- 
rency, the value of which was steadily decreasing. It 
fell so low that at one time it took one hundred Conti- 
nental dollars to buy a pair of shoes. The foreign officers 
who had joined the camp were still faithful. Besides Lafayette and 
DeKalb, were Kosciusko, Pulaski and Von Steuben. These lived in little 
log huts "no gayer," writes Lafayette, "than a dungeon. " These men 
were used to courts, luxury and adulation, and their devotion to the 
American cause was put to a severe test, although, of course, they did 
not suffer the stinging privations of the common soldiery. The camp 
at Valley Forge was laid out in parallel streets of log huts, built by the 
soldiers. Fortunately there was plenty of building material close at 
hand. This was their salvation. Had they not been well sheltered, 
it is doubtful if they would have had courage to face the rigors of that 
winter. Even as it was, the death-rate increased thirty-three per cent. 




3IO 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



from week to week. Desertion was frequent, but not so frequent as one 
might expect. 

Congress was at York, Pennsylvania. It seemed to the men who 
had the interests of the national army at heart, that Congress was 
strangely neglectful and indifferent. Upon Washington's shoulders 
fell the responsibility and burden of providing supplies and putting 
down mutiny. His distresses were added to by the fact that he had 
many enemies who were planning for his overthrow. Chief among 
these was General Gates, who had conducted the latter part of a suc- 
cessful campaign at the north — a campaign in which he won more 




BARON VON STEUBEN. 



credit and did less work than several other generals whose names histon^ 
has not so faithfully preserved. He was exceedingly jealous of Wash- 
ington, and conspired with a man by the name of Conway for the 
overthrow of the Commander-in-chief. This was called the "Conway 
Cabal." A conspiracy of this kind could not be conducted without 
correspondence, and this made discovery almost inevitable. Through- 
out the country the cabal aroused universal indignation. In the midst 
of these troubles Washington had the satisfaction of knowing that the 
best men of the country* were his warm friends, and he also perceived 



TATTERED CONQUERORS. 311 

that in spite of their privations the army was growing in effectiveness. 
This was due largely to William ^"on Steuben, the Prussian general, 
who has been mentioned before. He had been with Frederick the 
Great, and understood the management of men thoroughly. He intro- 
duced the Prussian system of minor tactics, and beginning on a small 
scale, he gradually brought the whole army into an admirable state of 
drill. The fact that he had no personal ambition in the matter and 
was moved solely by a sympathy for the soldiers and the cause they 
represented, endeared him to the hearts of the men. He had a quick 
temper and a brusque manner. He swore at the soldiers in German, 
and compelled his aids to swear at them in English. But the men had 
the sense to perceive that what they were learning would make them 
formidable. They saw now, if they had never before, the necessity of 
absolute obedience on the part of the soldier, and that he is valuable 
only when he becomes an unthinking part of a great human machine. 
In the battles which were to come Steuben was remembered with affec- 
tion and tenderness when the men saw the strength they had gained 
under his instruction. Stories of his bluffness, his roughness and his 
profanity were told for long years after with a humor which but illy 
disguised the emotion which the mention of his name awakened. So 
the long months of the winter passed with Washington's men, and mean- 
while, in the North, there were active hostilities. 

Burgoyne, on his return to England after the end of the American 
campaign in Canada, submitted to the ministry his ' 'Thoughts for con- 
ducting the war from the side of Canada." His plans were approved, 
and in March of 1777 he was given command of a force. Lieutenant- 
Colonel St. Leger was to assist him by making a diversion on the 
Mohawk river. The Governor of Canada was ordered to give all the 
assistance possible by adding Canadians and Indians to the expeditions. 
But the Canadians were more than indifferent; they were disinclined to 
the service. It was a matter which did not concern them, and in which 
they would have preferred to take no part. With the Indians, as can 
easily be imagined, it was quite different. But Burgoyne was seriously 
criticised, even in England, for the use of these savages in honorable 
warfare. The plan of the campaign was for Burgoyne to get possession 
of Albany, control the Hudson river, co-operate with Howe, and allow 
that general to act with his whole force southward; in short, to divide 
New England from the other States, and thus make their reduction 
easier. But through a very slight accident, which, however, was not 
slight in its consequence, General Howe was not informed of these 



312 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

plans at all. Burgoyne landed with his eight thousand men off St. 
John's river, with the finest artiller}' train in America. Under him 
was a corps of successful officers. An English fleet was put upon Lake 
Champlain, consisting of nine vessels, carrying one hundred and forty- 
three guns and manned by one hundred and forty seamen. 

On the 17th of June Burgoyne prepared for an attack against Ticon- 
deroga. The river of St. John being the outlet of Lake Champlain, he 
had easily moved down to the western shore of the lake, and arrayed 
himself before the fort. Ticonderoga was still thought to be the key to 
the northern colonies, and the English believed its reduction to be 
necessary. The Americans were confident of holding the fort. General 
Arthur St. Clair, of Pennsylvania, was in command of the post with a 
force of three thousand men. Major-General Schuyler, who at this 
time had charge of the northern department, hastened to strengthen the 
chain of posts from Ticonderoga to the Hudson and Albany. St. 
Clair's force was too small to cover ever\' explored point, and to save 
some of his out-post detachments, he withdrew them. One of the posts 
which he was forced to abandon was Mount Hope. This the English 
General, Frazer, took possession of with heavy guns, and cut off the 
communication of the Americans with Lake George. But this was a 
little matter compared with an unexpected move on the part of the 
British, which amazed and dismayed the Americans. South of Ticon- 
deroga was a steep wooded height, which rose more than six hundred 
feet above the level of the lake. This was Sugar Loaf Mountain. It 
overlooked every fortified elevation in the vicinity, but had always been 
neglected in former wars because it was thought to be inaccessible. 
Burgoyne had with him engineers of ambition and skill, who secretly 
made a path up which the artillery could be drawn to the top, and one 
morning the American garrison, awoke to find the best guns of the 
English army frowning down upon them. St. Clair had but one 
chance of saving his garrison and that was b\- leaving the fort secretly 
at night. On the 6th of July, at 3 o'clock in the morning, the 
troops marched out of the Ticonderoga forts and moved towards 
Castleton, thirty miles southeast. The guns had been spiked, the tents 
struck, the women and the sick sent hours before up the lake with the 
stores, and all would have gone well if some one had not been foolish 
enough to set fire to one of the houses. By the light of the blaze the 
English saw the Americans retreating, and started immediately in 
pursuit. All the next day St. Clair retreated through the woods and on 
the morning of the 7th was attacked. He met with a heavy loss and 



TATTERED CONQUERORS. 313 

was obliged to retreat. Forty of his men were killed and three hundred 
and fifty wounded or taken prisoners. General St. Clair made a 
circuitous march of more than one hundred miles and reached Fort 
Edward with the remainder of his army. 

Throughout the colonies there was a feeling of deep chagrin which, 
to tell the truth, was out of proportion with the disaster. In England 
there was rejoicing as ill-proportioned. There was no question, of 
course, but that the condition of the northern army was serious. All 
the troops that General Schuyler could muster at Fort Edward by the 
middle of July were barely five thousand. He called for assistance, and 
Washington sent him two brigades of Morgan's splendid riflemen, 
besides tents, ammunition and guns, which he could but illy spare from 
his own army. General Benedict Arnold and General Lincoln, of 
Massachusetts, were ordered to report to Schuyler. Burgoyne, for 
some reason, was slow in moving, and these reinforcements had time to 
reach Fort Edward without interruption. In all, the American army 
at the north numbered six thousand, two-thirds of whom were Conti- 
nentals, fairly armed. When Burgoyne' s soldiers began their march, 
they found that the roads had been torn up, trees felled across them, all 
the bridges destroyed, and the cattle driven off. Their provisions were 
tardy, and the month of July had almost passed before they reached the 
river at Fort Edward. On the 2 2d Schuyler abandoned this fort and 
took a better position on Moses' creek, three miles below. Being 
threatened here, he fell back from one point to another until he reached 
Von Schaick's Island, where the Mohawk runs into the Hudson, 
Burgoyne' s plan of the campaign, as has been said before, was to send 
two forces southward. One of these was to march through the Mohawk 
valley to Albany and join the main body. This was composed of 
eighteen hundred men, under St. Leger. These reached the vicinity of 
an old fortification on the Mohawk river, known as Fort Schuyler. St. 
Leger demanded surrender but was promptly refused. The people of 
the valley were patriotic, and at the first alarm the militia had turned 
out eight hundred in number and hurried to the relief of the garrison, 
which was composed of seven hundred and fifty New York and 
Massachusetts Continental troops, under Colonel Gansevoort. At the 
head of the militia was General Nicholas Herkimer, a sturdy German, 
who had been so warm in his defence of the popular cause that his 
leadership alone gave courage to the people of the valley. He sent 
word to Gansevoort of his approach, and suggested that the garrison 
should meet him at an appointed place. But St. Leger heard of 



314 THE STORY OK AMERICA. 

Herkimer's approach and intercepted him. Herkimer was marching 
carelessly through the Mohawk valley where the river bends frequently 
and the ground is broken with ravines, when he found himself 
surrounded by Indians and Englishmen in ambush. The Americans 
had entered well into the defile near Oriskany, where they were quite 
at the mercy of the enemy. Herkimer was mortally wounded at the 
beginning of the engagement, but he seated himself upon his saddle at 
the foot of a tree, lit his pipe, and determining to die as slowly as 
possible, gave his orders. No fight of the revolution was more 
desperate. For a large part of the time it consisted of hand-to-hand 
struggles, in which the men fought with knives, tomahawks, swords 
and spears. The fight lasted for five hours, till the ground was covered 
with the dead and wounded, nearly two hundred being killed on each 
side. At length help came to the Americans. Gansevoort had been 
reached by a messenger and sent out a sortie, composed of two hundred 
and fifty New York and Massachusetts men, under Lieutenant-Colonel 
Willett, of New York. This party rushed into the enemy's camp, 
where only a few troops had been left in charge, capturing baggage, 
stores, papers and flags and drawing the attention of the enemy away 
from Herkimer's hard-pressed forces. The Indians were frightened 
and soon retreated. This weakened the British so that they had no 
choice but to follow. St. Leger did not, however, give up the siege of 
the fort until news reached him of Arnold's approach, when the Indian 
allies compelled him to abandon the siege. 

This was the first check to Burgoyne's plans. The hatred of him 
among the Americans had increased a thousand fold. His cruelty in 
employing the Indians was everywhere condemned. The fate of Jane 
McCrae was quoted as an example of the horrors which Indian alliance 
involved. She was a young woman, beautiful and gently reared, 
affianced at the time of her death to a young loyalist officer. She was 
killed while in the hands of two Indians, and her long hair was after- 
wards shown at Burgoyne's headquarters. People chose to believe that 
she was killed by the Indians, but in fact she was killed by her friends, 
the American soldiers, who were firing upon a party of Indians who had 
captured Miss McCrae and a friend with whom she was staying, Mrs. 
McNeal. Miss McCrae was buried by the soldiers who had attempted 
her rescue and heedlessly caused her death. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History — Burgoyne's "Expedition from Canada." 
Biography— Spark's "I.ifc of Allen." 

Fiction — K. E. Elli.s' "Haunted Wood.'' 
C. F. Hoffman's "Greyslaer." 



CHAPTER LIX. 



^'moui Inniti." 



THE RAID ON BENNINGTON GENERAL GATES GIVEN COMMAND AT 

THE NORTH — THE BATTLE OF FREEMAN'S FARM — 
BATTLE OF BEMUS HEIGHTS — ^SURREN- 
DER OF BURGOYNE. 



URGOYNE, moving his main column with slow, 
militaty precision, was in great need of stores, and 
was delighted when he learned that about twenty- 
five miles east of his line of march, at Bennington, 
in the New Hampshire grants, was a depot of 
^' ^ horses and stores, which the Americans had established. 
To march against this store-house was, therefore, his 
intention, and he appointed for the leader of the raid 
Lieutenant-Colonel Baume, a trusted German officer. 
Under him was a select corps, five hundred strong, and a 
party of loyalist rangers. About one hundred Indians 
joined the column also. Baume started out on the 
eleventh of August, and on the afternoon of the 
thirteenth, then sixteen miles distant from his starting 
point, wrote to Burgoyne that the rebels were now aware of the expe- 
dition, but that the Tories all about the country were flocking in to him. 
He complained that the Indians were uncontrollable, and added that he 
had learned that the strength of the American militia at Bennington 
was about eight hundred. Burgoyne concluded, on receiving this 
information, that it would be best to reinforce Baume, and on the 
fifteenth sent forward Colonel Breyman and his five hundred Brunswick 
chasseurs. It was true that Burgoyne' s approach had been learned of 
by the "rebels." They had risen with their usual promptitude, and at 
their head was General Stark, who, at the time of the Boston fight, had 
gathered the farmers of the country around him and hastened to the 
rescue. At Bunker Hill, and at Trenton, he had done brave work, and 
now the whole region was ready to answer to his call. The State 




3l6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

ordered out the militia, and gave Stark the command. His brigade 
consisted of fifteen hundred militia. To these were added companies of 
"Green jMountain Boys," which swelled the entire force to about 
twenty-two hundred. These hastened to Bennington, many of them 
marching by night in a severe rain. By the sixteenth, Stark was 
ready to attack Baume's main body. There is a stor)' that as the 
general came in sight of the enemy he cried: "See there, my men; 
there are the red coats; before night they are ours, or MoUie Stark is a 
widow." The fight lasted for two hours, and the British were finally 
forced to give way. No road of escape was left open to them, and the 
entire body surrendered. Baume was mortally wounded. The Ameri- 
can militia-men, in great exultation, scattered over the abandoned camp 
for the purpose of plundering it. By this greed and disorder they came 
near losing all the advantage they had gained, for they were surprised 
by Colonel Breyman with his reinforcements, and it was only b\- the 
promptest action of the American officers that the English were driven 
back. When night fell, it was certain that the Americans had gained a 
signal victory. They had taken four cannon and nearly seven hundred 
prisoners, with but a small loss to themselves. This was known as the 
Battle of Bennington. This success at the north reanimated the spirits 
of the colonies. Volunteers hastened northward to swell the victorious 
army there. General Gates was given command of the northern 
department, in the place of Schuyler, and the former general reaped 
the credit of all the work Schuyler had done. Gates moved the camp 
from the mouth of the Mohawk, and took possession of Bemus Heights, 
twenty-five miles north of Albany. This site was commanding, and 
capable of easy defense, and, under the direction of Kosciusko, was 
strengthened by a line of breastworks and redoubts. This post held the 
road to Albau}-, and to reach that town Burgoyne must first overcome 
this obstacle. The British were still annoyed by lack of supplies, but 
it was necessar}' that they should push on, and they hastened to attack 
the Americans on Bemus Heights as soon as possible. 

Gates had about nine thousand men. His position was excellent. 
Upon the right was the Hudson; on the left, ridges and thick woods; in 
front, a ravine and abattis. Commanding with Gates was a large 
number of efficient officers, among them Arnold, and Colonel Daniel 
iviorgan of Virginia, with his famous rifle corps. On the eighteenth there 
was a skirmish, in which a number of Englishmen, who were gathering 
potatoes, were killed or captured. On the nineteenth, work began in 
good earnest. Burgoyne moved upon Gates in three large columns. 



'ELBOW ROOM." 



1-^7 



Gates hastened to send out Arnold and Morgan to meet him. The 
battle ground was interspersed with thick woods, occasional clearings, 
and ravines. With such protection the lines were able to approach 
within close range. The fight was a long and serious one; now one 
side and now the other fell back. A number of the American com- 
manders lost half of the men in their force. The English had four 
pieces of artillery on the ground, but the iVmericans had none. A party 
of New Hampshire men charged upon and seized a twelve-pounder. 
They were driven from it by a larger body of the enemy, but secured it 
a second time, and were again forced back. Private Thomas Haynes, 
of Concord, sat astride the muzzle of a piece when the enemy came up, 
and killed two men with his bayonet before a bullet struck him. The 
fierceness of the struggle can be imagined when it is known that thirty- 
six out of the forty-eight British gunners were either killed or wounded. 
The firing ceased at sunset. The Americans withdrew their fortified 
lines and the enemy held the field. Neither side were victorious, but 
Burgoyne had received his second check. The engagement was known 
as the battle of Freeman's Farm. 

The British fortified the ground which they held, and rested there 
for eighteen days. In the meantime, reinforcements came to Gates. 
General Stark threatened Burgoyne' s communication with the north, 
and Colonel John Brown, with five hundred men, had made a dash at 
Ticonderoga and taken prisoners and guns. Burgoyne' s constant hope 
was to join the main body under Howe, and thus force Gates to fall 
back. By the 21st of September he received word that Sir Henry 
Clinton had been sent from Howe's army with an expedition which 
would sail up the Hudson for the purpose of taking the forts near West 
Point, thus creating a diversion in Burgoyne' s favor. Clinton succeeded 
in doing as he desired, and carried both Forts Montgomery and Clinton 
by assault. The American loss was about three hundred, of whom 
sixty or seventy were killed or wounded. The British dismantled the 
forts, burned two American frigates and laid a village in ashes. General 
Putnam, who was in command of the Americans at that point, retreated 
farther up the river and attacked the post at Fishkill. Clinton then 
returned to New York. 

This had not been of such marked relief to Burgoyne as he had 
hoped. The American lines were closing about him. He was short of 
provisions, and he found his Indian allies restless. It was necessary for 
him to either advance or retreat, and it was more in keeping with his 
character to do the first. With his best generals, he took position on 



3l8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

open ground within a mile of the American lines, sending an advance 
around to reach the American rear. Gates was quick and cordial in his 
response, sending out Morgan, with his riflemen, to begin the work. 
Hardly an hour passed after the British gave battle before their whole 
line was retiring in disorder. The success of the day had largely been 
due to the efforts of Arnold. There were many jealousies and enmities 
in the northern division, and Arnold's impassioned and overbearing 
disposition had brought him into disgrace. Gates had taken his 
command from him and told him to remain in his tent, but when he 
heard the firing upon the field and saw how the American lines wavered 
for a time, he rushed out and took command of first one corps and then 
another, rousing the troops to enthusiasm. Gates sent a messenger 
ordering him to leave the field, but Arnold succeeded in avoiding him, 
and continued to cheer on the men who followed wherever he led. 
Even when the English were driven to their intrenchments, and the 
twilight had deepened almost to darkness, Arnold and Morgan broke 
through the lines and works and forced the Hessians to abandon their 
position. In this last charge Arnold was wounded. Congress promoted 
him to the rank of Major-General. The American loss had been small, 
but the English had lost many men as well as one of their best generals, 
and altogether the defeat of the English was decisive. Burgoyne 
retreated to Saratoga and encamped at the north side of the Fishkill. 
Gates followed him and made such a disposition of his troops as to 
surround him. His line of retreat was severed; he was threatened in 
the rear, and had but five days rations in the camp. Under the 
circumstances there was little choice but for him to make proposals for 
surrender. These he sent to the American commander, who agreed 
that the British army should march out with all the honors of war and 
have free passage to England, upon condition of not ser\'ing again 
during the war. The surrender included five thousand seven hundred 
and sixty-three officers and men. On the 17th of October the army 
laid down their arms in the presence of two majors of General Gates' 
staff. For several days after, Burgoyne and his officers were entertained 
courteously by Gates and his staff. In England, Burgoyne was severeh' 
blamed for a blunder in which the ministry should have taken the blame 
to themselves. Congress presented Gates a medal for accomplishing 
what, up to this time, was the most important event of the war. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Burgoyne's "Orderly Book." 

Felton's "Journal of American Revolution." 
Biography— Spark's "Life of Stark." 
Fiction— Cooper'.s "Chaiu-Bearcr." 



CHAPTER LX. 

infers mh. iliiskal 



EVACUATION OF PHILADELPHIA BY THE BRITISH — THE BATTLE OF 

MONMOUTH COURT HOUSE FIRING OF BEDFORD AND 

FAIR HAVEN — THE WYOMING MAS- 
SACRE WARFARE IN 

r^ THE WEST. 



HE British forces had occupied Philadelphia for 
more than eight months with a force much larger 
than Washington's, but they had failed to estab- 
lish themselves in the State at large. Early in the 
summer of 1778 they received orders to return to 
New York, for the concentration of their forces had 
become necessary. On June i8th they began to 
move, and were soon ferried across the river and marching 
northward through the Jerseys. Howe had been relieved 
and Sir Henry Clinton had the command. The train 
was composed of fourteen thousand effective men and the 
provision train was eight or ten miles long. The heat 
was intense, the roads bad, and during the long march to 
New York between six and eight hundred Hessians 
deserted. As soon as Washington heard of Clinton's 
start he broke camp at Valley Forge and sent his men forward to 
destroy bridges and delay the enemy. On the 21st the Americans 
crossed the Delaware and on the 28th struck the rear of Clinton's 
columns, bringing about the battle of Monmouth Court House. General 
Steuben himself had reconnoitred the enemy the day before. Lafayette, 
Green and Lee were given commands. The night before the 28th several 
hundred men were moved up closer to the enemy, where they could be 
in position to watch their movements in the morning. As soon as Clin- 
ton's troops were set in motion Washington sent word to Lee to hasten 
operations and force an engagement. The main army moved forward 
to support the advance corps. Lee was thrown into confusion by con- 




320 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

flicting reports, and it was 9 o'clock in the morning before he was 
assured that the British were really continuing their march. The 
opportunity for attack, according to Washington's plan, was lost. A 
second skirmish took place between detachments of both armies, the 
Americans gaining the advantage. 

At this stage of the conflict Lee sent orders to Wayne to move to 
the right and capture the enemy's rear guard. This looked like a 
retreat to the rest of the commanders, and they left their positions and 
fell back some distance, when Lee sent his tardy orders to stand fast. 
By this time the entire division was in retreat. This the British saw 
and were not slow to take advantage of. Lee watched his detachments 
retreat across the ravine and then, seeing that they were safe, followed 
them, to find that Washington had come up with the main army and 
taken command himself In a moment the atmosphere changed. The 
vacillation of the troops was gone, and they responded to the command 
of Washington's vigorous leadership. The Commander-in-chief ordered 
the nearest officers to hold the ground, while he formed the main army. 
The retreating troops were quick to join those in position. When Lee, 
last of all, came across the ravine, Washington met him and reproached 
him in terms as angry as they were justifiable. Lee's military- career 
was practically ended. He was soon after brought to trial before a 
court-martial, found guilty of disobedience to orders, misbehavior before 
the enemy, disrespect to the Commander-in-chief, and was sentenced to 
suspension from command for a year. The British soon advanced, but 
the Continentals stood firm, and Lafayette prevented Clinton from 
deflanking the position. Not until 5 o'clock in the afternoon did the 
British fall back. The loss was about three hundred and fifty on each 
side. Clinton marched on to New York without further interruption, 
Washington following him. The Americans encamped upon White 
Plains, where they could watch the enemy. Late in July the Count 
D'Estaing arrived from France with a squadron of twelve ships, carrying 
four thousand troops. This fleet was intended for the relief of Phila- 
delphia, but did not reach the Delaware until that cit>- had been evacu- 
ated. It finally put in at Newport, and at its approach twenty-one 
English vessels were burned to a\'oid capture. The Continentals had 
been in great hopes that D'Estaing would put in at the harbor of New 
York, but he claimed that the water there was not sufficient. Not a 
little dissatisfaction was felt, but this was soon forgotten in a determina- 
tion to be grateful for his aid. It was decided that the French and 
American armies were to co-operate in an attack upon Newport, where 



SABRE AND MUSKET. 321 

General Pigot was stationed with six thousand British and Hessians. 
There were ten thousand Continentals in Rhode Island, under the 
command of Sullivan. Sullivan agreed with D'Estaing that an attack 
should be made on August loth, but he moved before that date and 
neglected to inform the French commander of his change of purpose. 
On the 9th, when the French were ready to co-operate, a fleet of 
thirty-six vessels, under Lord Howe, appeared at sea, and D'Estaing 
re-embarked his men and put out after them, but no battle followed, for 
the fleets were overtaken by a terrible storm which scattered them. 
Sullivan thought best to push on, even without the French troops. He 
forced the enemy to withdraw within their lines of intrenchment, 
covered his own men with earthworks, and waited for D'Estaing's 
return. The French commander, instead of returning, went to Boston 
to have his fleet repaired. It was a bitter disappointment to the Conti- 
nentals. Sullivan was doubtful about the safety of attacking under the 
circumstances, for D'Estaing steadily refused to separate his men from 
the ships. But on the 29th an engagement took place, which was 
provoked by Sullivan. In the end the Americans were driven from 
their positions, though with a loss of only one-fifth as large as that sus- 
tained by the British. On the following day Sullivan learned that 
Pigot was to be reinforced by Clinton with five thousand men, and he 
therefore began a hasty retreat across the country. Clinton finding 
there were no soldiers to fight, set fire to New Bedford and Fair Haven 
and all the vessels at their wharves. Howe sailed to Boston and chal- 
lenged D'Estaing to battle, but he was not yet ready for sea, and when 
his fleet was at length refitted he sailed for the West India station 
without any further effort to help the American cause. 

While these hostilities were being conducted along the coast, in the 
west the Tories and the Indians were still keeping up frequent though 
irregular hostilities. In the battle of Oriskany, the year before, more 
than one hundred Indians had been slain, and in the tribes of the Six 
Nations there was a thirst for revenge. Joseph Brant was the most 
influential of all their chiefs. He had been educated among the whites, 
and having naturally an active mind and a savage nature, was now a 
most formidable leader. He was attached to the Tory interest of cen- 
tral New York by a sort of relationship with Sir William Johnson. 
The Tories did not disdain to use him as one of their chief allies, and 
among the WHiigs he was dreaded without measure. From July to 
November of 1778, a merciless warfare was kept up by the Tories and 
Indians on the defenseless Whigs. Tne warfare extended all along the 



322 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

valle>- of the Susquehanna, northward through the west of Alban>-. 
Villages were burned, and men, women and children murdered. 
Toward the last of June two forts were taken at Wyoming, and many of 
the inhabitants of the valley were obliged to fly for their lives to Fort 
Forty. Colonel Zebulon Butler had command of the garrison here, 
and foolishly moved out against the Tories and Indians, who had a 
much larofer force than he. All but sixtv of his three hundred men 
were killed. As the news of this terrible massacre spread through the 
valley, the people fled from their homes to the woods and mountains, 
or sought protection at Fort Wyoming. In a little while this fort was 
also surrendered on a promise that the settlers should be permitted to 
return to their farms. But, as might have been expected, this promise 
was broken andmany of the farmers, with their wives and children, were 
slain. About this time Joseph Brant had entered the settlement of 
Springfield, at Oswego Lake, and burnt every house in the village 
except one, in which he had had the humanity to place the women and 
children. Two months later Brant, with a large body of followers, 
destroyed the settlement of German Flats, in the valle}- of the Mohawk. 
For ten miles not a house or field was left unmolested. Early in 
November a terrible fate overtook Cherry Valle)', a village remarkable 
for the refinement and virtue of its inhabitants. The people were 
staunch patriots, and were, therefore, sure targets for Tory vengeance. 
Nearly fifty persons were killed here in the course of one day, and all 
but sixteen were women and children. The fort was not taken, but 
most of the buildings in the village were burned. 

Still farther west the warfare was waged as mercilessly. The terri- 
tor}' which is now the States of Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky was 
then thinly settled with pioneers. It was three years since Daniel 
Boone had blazed a trace in the wilderness west of Virginia. The men 
who followed him were among the bravest and most enduring of 
the nation. Hunting and fighting were necessary to their bare 
existence. Their deeds of endurance and fortitude are among the 
most romantic tales of history. They had settled, unfortunately, upon 
what was considered the common hunting grounds of both the northern 
and southern Indians, and the savages naturally resented the encroach- 
ment upon their lands. The terrible disasters which overtook the 
l^ioneers of that region caused it to be called "the Dark and Bloody 
Ground." The English added fuel to their hatred, and many of the 
expeditions against the unfortunate settlers were inspired at Detroit, 
Vincennes and Kaskaskia In' the commanders of the garrisons there. 



SABRE AND MUSKET. 323 

Colonel George Rogers Clark, one of the hardy pioneers of Kentucky, 
determined to strike at the source of this mischief Patrick Henry, 
who was then Governor of Virginia, gave him aid, and Clark got 
together a band of one hundred and fifty men, and in May, 1778, went 
down the Ohio. At Corn Island, by the falls of the Ohio, he built a 
block-house as a depot for provisions, and leaving five men in charge, 
went on with his force, which had now increased a little. While he 
was gone, these five men built cabins where Louisville now stands. He 
left his boat at the mouth of the Tennessee and marched across to Kas- 
kaskia. Here he surrounded and took the town. He sent the 
Governor to Virginia, and exacted an oath of allegiance to the United 
States from the people. Cahokia was soon taken in the same manner, 
and after that Vincennes, on the Wabash. It was in the autumn of 
1778 that the county of Illinois was first recognized and a civil com- 
mandant appointed. Governor Hamilton, of Detroit, soon recovered 
Vincennes, where Clark had left only two men in the fort. Hamilton 
was not aware of this fact, and approached with eight hundred men, 
demanding a surrender. The captain refused till he knew the terms. 
Hamilton conceded the honors of war, and the captain and his one man 
marched out with dignity between the surprised columns of the enemy. 
Late the following winter Clark marched from Kaskaskia through the 
swamps of that country and retook the fort. Hamilton was sent as a 
prisoner of war to Virginia. The Indians, who were always anxious to 
be on the strongest side, now became the friends of the Americans. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Moore's "Treason of Charles Lee." 
Biography— Abbott's "Life of Boone." 
Stone's "Life of Brant." 
Fiction— H. Peterson's "Pemberton." 
Poetry— Hopkinson's "Battle of the Kegs." 

Campbell's "Gertrude of Wyoming." 

William Collins' "MoUie Pitcher at Monmouth." 



CHAPTER LXI. 

BRITISH REDUCTION OF GEORGIA — THE DESTRUCTION OF NEW 

HAVEN — THE AMERICANS CAPTURE STONY POINT — 

THE GREAT NAVAL ENGAGEMENT OF 

JOHN PAUL JONES. 



OWARD the close of the year the war drifted to 
the South. The ministry of England still held 
that the southern colonies ought to be, and could 
be, subdued. Lieutenant-Colonel Campbell was 
sent, with two thousand men, to reduce Savannah. 
There were twelve or fifteen hundred Continent- 
als at that place, under the command of General 
Robert Howe, of North Carolina. He was well situated, 
with a lagoon in front, a morass on the right and the 
swamps of the river on the left. The works of the town 
were in his rear and he thought himself safe, but Campbell 
discovered a path through the swamps, which had been 
left unguarded. A detachment, led by a negro, went over 
this path and turned Howe's right. At the same time an 
attack was made in front, and the Americans beat a confused retreat 
into the town, losing over five hundred in killed and as prisoners, as 
well as baggage and artillery. In a short time Campbell was in 
possession of Augusta, and the people of Georgia were obliged to 
acknowledge royal rule. Throughout Georgia and the other southern 
colonies there had been a fierce partisan warfare. Nowhere else in the 
colonies had there been neighborhood feuds as bitter as in those States. 
The loyal and patriot parties were about equally divided all through 
the South, and first one and then the other would be in the ascendanc)-. 
As soon as Campbell took Augusta a company of Tories assembled for 
tlie purpose of joining him, but they were intercepted by a band of 
Whigs. Seventy men were captured, tried for treason, and five of them 





THE ASSAULT OX STONY POINT. 



THE "bON HOMME RICHARD." 325 

were hanged. In March, 1779, five hundred North Carolina militia 
were ordered to move down the Savannah towards the enemy, who had 
left Augusta. The Patriots were surprised by the Tories, two hundred 
men killed or wounded and the rest frightened into dispersing with as 
much speed as possible. Occurrences of this sort were not unfrequent, 
A party feeling existed everywhere, and neighbors whose plantations 
adjoined each other waged as bitter war against one another as if they 
had been denizens of different countries. The militia could not be 
relied on, for they were likely at any time to leave their duties and 
hasten home to the protection of their households against private 
enemies. 

By the nth of May the English commander was before Charleston 
and summoned it to surrender. This Moultrie and the other military 
leaders would not consent to, and in the engagement which followed 
the English were obliged to move back upon Savannah. In the course 
of the summer General Clinton sent down several expeditions for the 
purpose of harassing the people. Along the Virginian coast many 
merchant vessels were burned and large quantities of provisions 
destroyed. General Tryon landed at New Haven on the 5th of July 
with three thousand men. The move was an unexpected one, and 
there were no soldiers to oppose him. But the people armed, and the 
Yale students formed themselves into a military company. Dr. 
Daggett, the president of the college, sending his daughter to a place of 
safety and then shouldering his musket to fight with his pupils. He 
was, unfortunately, taken prisoner. The inhabitants did all that they 
could to check the progress of the enemy, but the Hessian and British 
soldiers filled the town and indulged in every sort of outrage. The 
houses were robbed, the men murdered and a scene of debauchery and 
cruelty followed which was a disgrace to civilized soldiers. Norwalk 
and Green's Farms were visited next and treated in the same manner. 

Washington had placed his force so as to cover West Point. He 
had recovered Stony Point, which Clinton had taken from him but a 
short time previous. The attack for recovery was made at midnight on 
July 15th. Every soldier had a badge of white paper fastened to his 
hat, that he might be distinguished from the enemy. Each man was 
to shout, ' 'The fort is our own, " as he entered the works. Between 
the point and the mainland was a neck, which, at the hour of the 
attack, was covered by the tide about two feet deep. While crossing 
this, fire was opened upon the Americans from the gims. The 
Americans had been ordered by Anthony Wayne, who led them, not to 



326 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

fire, but to depend entirely on their bayonets. The English stood bv 
their guns cr^'ing, "Come on, ye damned rebels, come on," to which 
Wayne's men cheerfully responded, "Don't be in such a hurry, my lads; 
we will be with you presently" — and they were, although they had to 
scramble up the steep ascent and over the abatis with the English fire 
upon them. The attack was one of those impetuous ones which none 
could lead so siiccessfully as "Mad Anthony Wayne." He was struck 
in the forehead with a ball, but insisted on being carried into the fort 
by his men. The entire capture had not taken more than half an hour, 
and by it the Americans gained nearly fifteen hundred prisoners, fifteen 
pieces of cannon, and large quantities of stores and ammunition. 
This defeat delayed Clinton's advance and caused him to postpone 
indefinitely the movement upon Connecticut. 

A little later than this he met with another surprise in the loss of 
the post at Paulus Hook, now Jersey City. On the 19th of August, 
Major Henry Lee, with five companies of southern troopers, carried 
the place by assault without firing a shot. They were hotly pursued, 
but took one hundred and fifty prisoners with them in safety. Clinton 
sent out a naval expedition in August, which had an engagement near 
the mouth of the Penobscot, in which they were successful. In this 
affair the American colonists showed a lack of courage and judgment. 

Not more than a month after this. General Paul Jones fought his 
great battle upon the sea. It was the most important event of the year, 
and indeed one of the most remarkable battles which ever took place 
upon the ocean. The contest upon the sea up to this time had been 
barely respectable. It was mostly a warfare of privateers, with plunder 
for its aim. Congress had been anxious for a nav>-, and had made all 
the eiforts possible for establishing one. But their means were limited, 
and the work had been left mostly to the small frigates and privateering 
vessels, who, in their way, did not a little work for the Revolution. 
In the year 1777 two hundred and fifty British vessels were captured by 
American cruisers before the ist of February. By the end of that year 
the number taken was four hundred and sixty-seven. The most 
successful of all the seamen was Paul Jones. All along the English 
coast he was held in terror and dread. To him the King of France 
gave an old Indiaman, fitted out as a man-of-war. This Paul Jones 
named the Bon Honinir Riciiarci. This cruised along the west coast of 
Ireland and the north of Scotland for more than a month, with two 
consorts, the Alliance and the Paulus. On the 2 2d of February' they 
came in sight of a fleet of merchantmen under convoy of two frigates. 



THE "BON HOMME RICHARD." 327 

One of these, the Scrap7s, carried fifty guns, the other, the Countess 0/ 
Scarborough, carried twenty-two. Jones gave the signal for pursuit as 
they were off Flamborough Head, on the coast of Yorkshire. He was 
not altogether in good condition for fight, for his crew had been reduced 
to man prizes, and his prisoners were two-thirds as numerous as his 
remaining crew. Besides, the Serapis was a new frigate. She had 
twent}- guns on each of her decks, main and upper, and ten lighter ones 
on her quarter deck and forecastle. The Richard had only six guns on 
her lower deck, which were all on the same side. Above these, on the 
main deck, were fourteen guns on each side. She had a high quarter 
and forecastle, with eight guns on these, and was of old-fashioned 
build, with a high poop, so that her lower deck was but little below 
her antagonist's main deck. It was after sunset, and a full moon had 
arisen, when the Richard came within hail of the Serapis. Captain 
Pearson, of the latter frigate, spoke the Richard twice. For answer 
Jones opened fire. Unfortunately, at the very first, two heavy guns on 
the lower deck burst. ]\Iany of the men were killed by the explosion. 
The rest went up to the main deck. The Serapis responded to the fire 
immediately. Jones pushed up closer, and as the heavy vessels swung 
around, the jib-boom of the Serapis ran into the mizzen rigging of the 
Richard. Jones himself fastened the vessels together, and one of the 
anchors of the Serapis caught the quarter of the RicJiard, lashing them 
fast. The Serapis was so close to her antagonist that she could not 
open her ports on the starboard side, and her first shots were fired 
through her own port lids to free her guns. The fire from the main 
deck of the Serapis, while it badly injured the Richard, had but little 
effect upon the men, who, as has been said, deserted the lower deck, 
where the cannonading did most execution, at the beginning. The 
upper guns of the Richard, of course, hung over the Serapis, as the 
former vessel had greatly the advantage of height. Muskets were little 
used, for it was night and clouds of smoke enveloped the vessels. At 
length, after two hours of about equal fighting, the men in the 
Richard's tops began throwing hand-grenades upon the deck of the 
Serapis, and one sailor, who had worked himself out to the end of the 
main yard with a bucket filled with grenades, lighted them one by one 
and threw them down the hatchway of the Serapis. They fell among 
a row of eighteen-pounder cartridges. The row was lighted, and in the 
explosion which followed, twenty men were blown to pieces. Many 
others w^ere frightfully burned. Some of them were stripped naked,, 
leaving nothing but the collars of their shirts and their wrist-bands 



328 THE STORY OF A.AfERICA. 

upon them. This roused them to desperation, and they made an 
attempt to board the Richard. They were met b}- Jones with a spike 
in his hand at the head of his men. The English were forced to fall 
back. At half past ten, Pearson, of the Scrapis.^ struck his colors, but 
the fight was so equal that the men upon the Richard hardly knew, 
when the cry "they have struck'' came, whether it was Pearson or 
Jones who had yielded. There is a stor>' that when Pearson delivered 
his sword to Jones he said: "I cannot, sir, but feel much mortification 
at the idea of surrendering my sword to a man who has fought me with 
a rope around his neck." Naturalh' this reproach did not in the least 
discomfort Jones. He returned the sword courteously, saying, "You 
have fought gallantly, sir, and I hope your King will give you a better 
ship." When Jones heard afterward that Pearson had been knighted 
for his intrepid action, he remarked: "He deserved it, and if I fall in 
with him again I will make a lord of him." When morning dawned 
the Richard was found to be sinking. The fires on her had not been 
put out, and she had been sadly torn to pieces. The wounded were, 
therefore, removed to the Serapis and were followed by the crew, who 
watched the gallant Richard sink to the bottom. The King of France 
presented Jones a sword, and Congress gave him a vote of thanks. 
Jones' action was the last important one between the English and the 
American ships in the war. The French fleet was relieving the 
American go\ ernment from the expense of maintaining a navy. For 
the most pari the naval actions during the remainder of the war were 
between privateers, of which there were a large number. 

FOR FURTHER READIXO. 
History— Tarleton's "Historj' of the Southern Campaign." 
Lee's "War in the "Southern Department." 
Hawk's "Revohitionar>- Hi.story- of North Carolina." 
Drayton's "Revohition in the Carolinas." 
BlOGR.\PHY— McKenzie's "Paul Jones." 
Fiction — Cooper's "The Pilot." 

T. Mirg^c's "Paul Jones." 

A. Cunningham's "Paul Jones.'' 

Dumas' "Captain Paul." 


















;i//^ 



RKI) JACKKT. 

l*roiii Weir's paiiitiiijj;. I-;iigravL-d by Uaiifortli. 
{J-.n-.s.m.uj 



CHAPTER LXII. 



■k 



iir 



EXPEDITION AGAINST THE SIX NATIONS — THE CIVILIZATION OF THE 
INDIANS — HUMILIATION OF THE SIX NATIONS — EXPE- 
DITION UP THE MISSISSIPPI FROM LOUIS- 
IANA — TRIUMPH OF CUNTON 
IN THE SOUTH. 



WASHINGTON was opposed to the movement 
against Canada. He thought it involved an 
unnecessary waste of lives and money, and it 
seemed to him that the great cause would not be 
materially affected by victory in that direction, 
and that the army of the nation, feeble enough at 
best, had need to concentrate its attention upon 
the defense of American homes. The plan of Cana- 
dian conquest had been a favorite one with Congress, 
and they listened to Washington's objections with 
unfeigned irritation. When at length they yielded, 
it was only upon condition that an effort should be 
made to take the British fort at Niagara. This Wash- 
ington did not altogether approve of, but he hoped, by 
sending an expedition against that fort, to severely 
punish the Six Nations, from whose atrocities the frontier settlements 
still continued to suffer. Early in 1779, preparations were made for 
carrying the war into Central New York and Western Pennsylvania. 
The command was given to Sullivan. The directions from Wash- 
ington were that he was to seem to have Niagara as his destination, but 
the punishment of the Indians was to be his sole object. These com- 
mands Sullivan followed closely, never approaching within seventy- 
five miles of Fort Niagara. But the spring and the summer passed 
before Sullivan was able to move. Congress showed its usual indif- 
ference, and the men were in no way provisioned for such an expe- 




T^T^O Till'; S'1\)RV OF AMKRICA. 

tlilion. Atone tiiiKall llic otliocrs in ihc Xow Jcrscn' brigade sent in 
their resignations. In tloing so, not e\en Washington conkl accnse 
them of hiek of patriotism. Their families were aetnally suffering for 
the neeessities of life, for the soldiers had reeei\ed no pay for months. 
The offieers insisted that the\- mnst retnrn to their homes and provide 
for their families. \Va.shington made a protest to the New Jersey legis- 
lature, whieh brought help for the time being, and the men resumed 
their duties. Before Sullivan could obtain supplies for his men he had 
to indulge in reproaches to Congress which were more candid than 
courteous, and which made him numy enemies. 

It was late in August when Sullivan was ready to move. He foinid 
the enenn in force near Elmira. This force was placed in a position 
protected on two sides by a bend in the river, and strengthened in 
front bv a breastwork which was artfulh' hidden by woods and under- 
brush. Into this ambush it was expected that the American forces 
would march. Joseph Hraul led the Indians, and the Sutlers, father 
and sou, fiercest among the Tories, were the commamlers of the loyal 
militia. The Americans knew well that should they tail into the hands 
of such enemies, no quarter would be shown, and in case of defeat, 
victor^■ would be turnetl into massacre. Hut this stratagem was not 
successful. .\ riileman who had climbed a tall tree discovered the 
whole plan, and In- his discovery defeated it. Sullivan had three thou- 
sand men, led In able and e.vperienced officers. He sent a portion of 
his army to face the Indians and force them into fight. Another por- 
tion was sent quicth' through woods and swamps for an attack on the 
rear and (lank. The enemy was caught in its own trap, and when the 
artillery broke in upon them from the rear, cr>ing, "Remember 
Wyoming!" they took to headlong tlight. 

Sullivan's army resumed its march in two days, and for weeks kept 
on its way leaving behind it the most utter desolation. Never before 
had Indians attained such a degree of civilization. They had built 
themselves towns and comfortable log huts, conveniently furnished and 
surrounded by excellent orchards and fields. Sullivan sjxn'cd none of 
these. His relentless destruction set back the civilization of the Indian 
permanently. Never since, except among the Cherokees, have they 
shown the industry, frugality and self-respect which they did at that 
time. Thousands of fruit-bearing trees were cut down. Two hundred 
bushels of Indian corn and immense quantities of potatoes, beans and 
other products of their farms and gardens were destroyed, as well as 
forty villages. The Indians were left with neither shelter nor food to 



TIIK SIX NATIONS. 33 1 

carry them throiigli the winter, which was close at hand, and which 
proved to be one of terrible severity. It was little wonder that when 
any of vSullivan's men fell into their hands they were tortured in that 
manner of ingenious cruelty of which only the savage is capable. Sul- 
livan went as far as the most western settlement of the vSix Nations, 
called Seneca Castle. From here he retraced his footsteps, having lost, 
in a long series of encounters, only forty men. Upon rejoining Wash- 
ington's army he resigned his commission. He had done the work 
appointed him and had done it well, but the reproaches which he had 
heaped upon Congress for their neglect of the national army caused 
them to accept his resignation without demur. 

At this time, or a little before, an expedition was undertaken from 
Louisiana, which, in the final settlement between England and the 
United States, probably did more than anything else towards securing 
the territory west of the Mississippi to the United vStates. This expe- 
dition was led by Galvez, the young and ambitious Governor of Louis- 
iana, A declaration of war had been made by Spain against England. 
The bonds of friendship between Spain and the United States were 
therefore strengthened, and Galvez joined with Pollock, the agent of 
Congress, in moving against the British forts, Manchac, Baton Rouge 
and Natchez. They also succeeded in capturing eight English vessels on 
Lake Pontchartrain, and a few months later took Mobile. The following 
year Pen.sacola, the last post in Florida in British po.ssession, was also 
reduced by Galvez. But for this, in the final adjustment, the United 
vStates might have been bounded by the Mississippi river on the 
west. 

The war had now lasted for five years. Clinton was still of the 
opinion that the quickest way to bring it to an end was to overrun the 
thinly settled southern country and compel the people to swear alle- 
giance to the King. By dividing the Union there, it was hoped that 
the rebellion could be suppressed. The national army was in despair. 
Washington mustered only about fifteen thousand men, and of these not 
more than eleven or twelve thousand were in the ranks. The time was 
approaching when many of the terms of enlistment would expire. For 
months the pay of the soldiers had not been forthcoming. . They were 
often hungry, all were poorly clothed, and some were actually naked. 
Had it not been for foreign loans, the nation could not have been sus- 
tained. It was this wretched army of half-starved men which Wash- 
ington had to bring against Clinton's well-cared-for troops. A common 
commander would have done one of two things — he would either have 



332 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

lost heart and surrendered, or brought on a rash attack to bring an end 
to these desperate straits. But Washington's military genius was equal 
to the occasion. His policy was to watch warily every movement of 
the enemy, to harass, annoy, delay, and to seize those rare opportuni- 
ties where a blow could be struck in safety. Clinton was lacking in 
that energy which sustained Washington, and while it seemed to lie in 
his power to win victor^-, he preferred to remain passive. Clinton 
believed that should he make both the South and North points of 
attack that he could crush either one or the other, for Washington, it 
was obvious, could not divide his forces. Charleston was still in 
possession of the Americans, being held by General Lincoln. The 
Americans were anxious to regain Savannah, and a plan was laid by 
which D'Estaing was to return from the West Indies, join with Lincoln, 
and move upon Savannah for the purpose of recapturing it. They did 
so, and demanded surrender. The answer of Prevost, the commander 
of the fort, was one of defiance. A siege was sustained there for a 
month, but as Prevost showed no signs of yielding, an assault was 
made on October 9th. D'Estaing and Lincoln led the attack with 
their combined force of four thousand men. The French fleet in the 
harbor kept up a cannonading of shot and shell. The English had a 
strong defense, and from behind the abatis and earthworks, kept up a 
murderous fire. The American braver}^ displayed was superb. Ser- 
geant Jasper, who had restored the flag to its place when it was shot 
down at Fort Moultrie, was killed here in defense of his colors. 
Between eleven and twelve hundred on the American side were killed, 
among them Count Pulaski. The British lost less than fifty. This 
ended the siege of Savannah. The French fleet set sail for the West 
Indies and Lincoln retreated to Charleston. Clinton now resolved upon 
energetic measures for the reduction of the whole South. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Ramsay's "American Revolution in South Carolina." 
Stone's "Border Wars of the American Revolution." 
"Siege of Savannah." Anon. 



44 



CHAPTER LXIII. 

om inn M^ Mvm\ Dnmt^ 



ft 



PLANS OF THE TWO ARMIES — SIEGE OF CHARLESTON BY THE ENGLISH 
— CAPTURE OF THE AMERICAN ARMY AT THE SOUTH — 

THE BURNING OF CONNECTICUT FARMS ARRI- 

>VAL OF ROCHAMBEAU — TREASON 
'of general ARNOLD. 




HE winter of 1779-80 was one of great severity. 
The sufferings of the American army at Morris- 
town were ahnost unendurable, and even the 
English, in their comfortable quarters at New 
York, were not a little annoyed by the extreme 
cold. The English constantly expected an attack, 
for the ice was so solid that the town could be easily 
approached. Lord Stirling led his Continentals across 
the Kill on the ice, at Elizabethtown, to Staten Island, 
marched two thousand men north to the Narrows, and 
burned a fortified house and several vessels. Another 
party crossed the North river in sleighs, and marching 
to Newark, burned the Academy and sacked some of the 
houses. Expeditions of this sort served to keep the Eng- 
lish in expectation of a general attack. Clinton's ambi- 
tious designs for subduing the southern colonies were not a little delayed, 
and it was the middle of March before he was ready to take the final 
steps for investing Charleston. Meanwhile, the American envoys 
begged for more extensive help from France. Franklin and his asso- 
ciates, who represented America in France, were doing work of as 
much importance to the independence of this country, as were Washing- 
ton and his devoted generals. Lafayette visited France to join his 
solicitations to those of Franklin. Together they persuaded the court 
to send nearly six thousand men, under Count De Rochambeau. The 
expedition was a splendid one. It sailed in April, at the time that 
Clinton appeared before Charleston and demanded surrender. General 
Lincoln, who was in command of the American defense at that 



334 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



point, sent word that he should hold it to the last extremity. This he 
did. The English fleet crossed the harbor, and closed slowly around 
the city. The American troops, defending the city at the rear, were 
met by the enemy and defeated, so that all of Lincoln's available roads 
for retreat were cut off. On the eighth of May the town surrendered, 
and the Continental troops and seamen were held as prisoners of war. 
The entire southern army of America was thus in the hands of the 
British. Savannah and Charleston, the foremost seaports, were 
captured and held by the enem}-. The British arm}- in Georgia and 
South Carolina numbered nearly fourteen thousand men. Clinton's 
plan of subduing the southern colonies seemed to him, and to everyone 
else, only a question of time. In spite of all lessons, however, the 
English continued to under-estimate the inherent patriotism of the 
American heart. Clinton issued a proclamation requiring all persons 
to take an active part in settling and securing his majesty's govern- 
ment, and declaring that all who refused to do so should be considered 
enemies and rebels. In all of the southern States there were man)- 
who were willing to remain neutral, but comparatively few — aside, of 
course, from the open Royalists — who were willing to take up arms 
against their own country-men. In the popular protest which was 
made to this proclamation, a Major James was sent to ask the com- 
mander of a British post at Georgetown for an explanation of the proc- 
lamation. The commander replied: "His majesty offers you a free 
pardon, of which you are undeserving, for you all ought to be hanged; 
but it is only on condition that you take up anns in his cause." Major 
James, the American, replied that those whom he represented would 
not submit to such conditions. "Represent! You damned rebel, if >ou 
dare speak in such language I will have }-ou hung at the 3'ard arm." 
James had no weapons, but for answer he knocked the British officer 
down with a chair and left him senseless. James and his four brothers 
were, after this, among the leaders of the partisans of the State. 

When the news of the surrender of Charleston reached Morris- 
town, it had a very dispiriting effect upon the troops. The English 
counted upon this, and on the sixth of June, six thousand troops were 
marched from Staten Island to the village of Connecticut Farms. The 
militia of the country fought every step of the way with them, falling 
back slowly and coolh- before the superior numbers of the English, but 
they were unable to protect the village, and Connecticut Farms was 
burned. The wife of the Rev. James Caldwell was killed by a shot 
through the window of the room where she was sitting with her 



''whom can we trust now?" 335 

children. A few da\s later, when the English had undertaken another 
movement, the husband of this murdered woman was among the 
leading spirits of the defense. The engagement took place at Spring- 
field, and in spite of the utmost efforts of the Americans the place was 
taken and burnt. When the men were in want of wadding for their 
guns, Caldwell distributed hymn books among them with the exhorta- 
tion, "Put Watts into'em, boys!" After the burning of Springfield, the 
enemy returned to Staten Island. 

By the nth of July, De Rochambeau arrived in Newport with his 
troops, now swelled by the addition of a fleet to twelve thousand men. 
Washington wished to move at once upon New York, but many of the 
French were ill from the effects of a troublous voyage, and their 
commander would not consent to action. So, to the great disappoint- 
ment of the people and of the army, the autumn passed in inactivity. 

As Washington was returning to his army from an interview with 
Rochambeau, at Hartford, in Connecticut, his unexpected arrival at 
West Point discovered the gigantic treason of General Arnold. Arnold 
was a man of proud and haughty spirit. As a soldier, his bravery and 
dash were never questioned. As a gentleman and a patriot, there was 
always some doubt of him in the minds of those who knew him best. 
His naturally arrogant nature had been irritated by the neglectful 
conduct of Congress in not paying that tribute to his ability which he 
felt that it deserved. This is urged as his only motive for his treason- 
able actions. For several months he corresponded with the British 
Commander-in-chief, giving him all the military and civil news which 
could be of any use to the enemy. While Arnold was in command at 
Philadelphia, various charges had been brought against him by the 
State, for which he was taken before a court-martial. After a public 
rebuke from the Commander-in-chief, he was restored to the service and 
under pretense of being disabled from duty in the field by an old 
wound, was given the command of W^est Point. He took this for 
the sole purpose of betraying his trust and selling himself at a high 
price to the English. No post in the country was of greater import- 
ance to either side than that of West Point. It commanded the 
navigation of the Hudson, and to a degree the communication with 
Canada, as well as that between the Northern and Southern States. The 
garrison by which it was held numbered more than three thousand men. 
These were defended by one hundred gims. With the betrayal of the 
place, large stores of provisions, ammunition, and the greater part of 
the men would inevitably fall into the hands of the English, and a blow 



33^ THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

would be struck at the American cause which would render success 
more than doubtful. 

In order to make the final arrangements, it was necessary that a 
personal interview should be held between Arnold and some represent- 
atives of General Clinton. Major Andre was the officer chosen by 
Clinton, as being a man of discretion and bravery. Arnold dared not 
trust any one on his own side with a knowledge of his villainy, and 
determined to converse with Clinton's emissary himself. He deter- 
mined, ^ too, to take as little personal risk as possible, and after making 
several ineffectual efforts to induce Andre to come within the American 
lines, he at last succeeded. It became necessary that if the plan was to 
be carried out, it should be done immediately, and under stress of this 
pressure Andre consented to leave the British ship, on which he had 
put himself that he might be nearer to Arnold, and to come on shore 
within the American lines. Hiding his uniform under a long overcoat, 
he took a boat and was rowed to the foot of Long Clove Mountain, 
about six miles below Stony Point, where he met Arnold. There, 
liidden in the bushes, the conspirators talked through the night. At 
dawn, Andre was taken to Arnold's headquarters and concealed there. 
To escape with his news was a difficult matter. The vessel in which 
he had been brought had moved farther down the river, and he was 
obliged to risk a ride through the country To provide against 
suspicion, Arnold gave his confederate a pass made out to John 
Anderson, which allowed him to pass White Plains and beyond. 
Mounted upon a good horse, Andre began his perilous ride through the 
country. He was within half a mile of Tarrytown, when he was 
stopped by three men who wished to know his business and destination. 
How so brilliant a man could have blundered in the carrying out of a 
scheme of such paramount importance, it is not eas>- to see, but in the 
alarm of the moment he confided that he was a British officer. The 
men took him to the nearest military post. Here the pass of John 
Anderson seemed to be a sufficient explanation of his presence. But 
his gait betrayed the fact that he was a soldier, and the matter was 
investigated. 

No one was willing to believe that one of the most trusted generals 
of the American army was a stupendous traitor, and it was some time 
])efore that idea even occurred to any one. The commander of the post 
to which Andre was taken wrote a letter to Arnold concerning the 
mysterious person, John Anderson, and asking an explanation. When 
Arnold received it he was at breakfast with two of Washington's aids. 




KSCAI'K OK UEXIvDICT ARNOLD. 



"WHOM CAN WE TRUST NOW?" 



ZZ7 



He saw that his treason would soon be known in all its enormity. He 
quietly went into another room, told his wife, in a few hurried words, 
of his peril, mounted a horse at his door, and riding to the river side, 
took a boat. Then, tying his handkerchief to his cane as a flag of 
truce, he sailed to the British ship, the Vulture. It was afternoon 
before his escape was noticed. 

Andre was hung. He had risked his life to oblige his commander, 
and under the promise of the reward of a large sum of money. He 
failed in his scheme, and received the punishment due a spy. It has 
been the fashion, both in England and America, to sympathize with 
him greatly because he was young, high born, scholarly and brave, but 
he did not act the part of a hero in the cause in which he died. No 
one who has read histor\' can help contrasting his dramatic self-con- 
sciousness — for he wrote and talked much about his sense of honor and 
his bravery — with the modest}- and devotion of Nathan Hale, the spy 
who died regretting that he had not another life to give his country. 
Washington offered to exchange Andre for Arnold, but Clinton was a 
man of honor, and would not break his word to a traitor, even to save 
a man who was the victim of his plans and his friend. 

The British government showed its gratitude to Arnold by giving 
him a commission as Brigadier-General in the army, and 6,315 pounds 
sterling in money. His wife and all of his children were pensioned, 
and throughout their lives received half pay as retired officers. But 
Arnold received no more respect among the English than among his 
own countr\-men. Later, in the southern campaign, Cornwallis 
positively refused to have him in his command. That spirit of brilliant 
daring which had distinguished him in the American army never again 
showed itself. In the victories which he won for the English he 
showed more of the spirit of a murderer and a marauder than of a 
general, 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — "Trial of Benedict Arnold." 
"Trial of Major John Audre.'' 
"New York Citv in the American Revolution. ' 

Tuckemian's "America and her Commentators." (French auxiliaries.) 
Biography — J. N. Arnold's "Life of Arnold." 

Fiction — E. P. Roe's "Near to Nature's Heart." 
Poetry — Harte's "Caldwell, of Springfield." 
Freneau's "Arnold's Departure." 
Bradley's "Andre's Last Moments." 
Drama— Calvert's "Arnold and Andre." 
Lord's "Andre." 
Dunlap's "Andre." 



CHAPTER LXIV. 



CORNWALLIS AND GATES AT THE SOUTH — THE COMMAND OF THE 

SOUTHERN FORCE GIVEN TO GENERAL GREEN — THE 

BATTLE OF king's MOUNTAIN — BATTLE 

OF GUILFORD COURT HOUSE. 




ORTUNATELY no serious harm came of 
Arnold's treachery, but to the people, and to 
the Commander-in-chief in particular, it was 
ver}- discouraging. ''Whom can we trust 
now?" asked Washington, sadly. It might 
well be a moment of gloom, for in the South, 
affairs for the time seemed hopeless. After Charleston 
was taken and the army moved through the State, 
Colonel Abraham Beaufort was sent, with about four 
hundred Virginian troops, to harass the enemy. He 
was met by thirty cavalry and mounted infantr)' under 
the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Bamastre Tarleton. 
Tarleton fell upon the Americans without giving them 
time for defense, and when they threw down their arms 
and begged for mercy, he cruelly killed them. It was not a battle, but 
a massacre, and won for Tarleton that reputation for cruelty by which 
he is remembered to this day. Had not the country been filled with 
partisans likely to rise at any time, this might have seemed the end of 
the war in the South, but since there was not a citizen who was not 
likely at any time to become a soldier, it was impossible to tell when 
the country was conquered. The loyal partisans of the Carolinas and 
of Georgia were obliged to content them.selves at this time by harassing 
the enemy in every way possible. Sumpter, Davie, Marion and many 
others were the leaders of desperate bands of men who hid themselves 
in the swamps and thick woods of the southern country, and sallied 



"I HAVE SENT YOU A GENERAL." 339 

forth at unexpected moments to annoy and injure the enemy. The 
camp of Marion was hid in the swamps of the Pedee, and so securely 
concealed, that even his men had sometimes to search for hours before 
they found it. 

Cornwallis, a soldier on the old plan, used to military precision and 
well-regulated warfare, was not a little chagrined and vexed by hostil- 
ities of this sort. He was never certain where he would find the enemy, 
and when he did find them he could not rely upon their keeping in 
battle array. They were very much more apt to disperse, baffle pursuit, 
and only appear again when they could strike an unexpected blow. 
When he learned that Baron De Kalb was marching southward 
with Mar}'land and Delaware troops, Cornwallis was prompt in his 
measures to intercept them. Gates had now been appointed by 
Congress to conduct the campaign, and he hastened forward with 
cavalr}' from Virginia and North Carolina, for the purpose of forming a 
junction with De Kalb. The American army numbered three thousand 
men, most of whom were raw recruits, without discipline, sufficient 
arms, or comfortable clothing. The British troops were veterans, but 
were fewer in number than the Americans. Gates wished to wage 
active warfare, although he must have known that his men could not 
be relied upon to stand stead}- fire. Gates sent Marion with his men 
into South Carolina on a reconnoisance, ordering him to destroy all 
the bridges and boats on his way, that the British might have no means 
of escaping to Charleston should they be defeated. But Cornwallis 
had no intention of being defeated. He was as anxious as Gates for 
action, and with far better cause. On the 15th of August, 1780, both 
armies moved, each with the intention of surprising the other. At the 
first fire the Americans broke ranks and fled, but a portion of the militia 
had the courage to check the advance, and the fight continued till night 
forced them to desist. When morning dawned Cornwallis was able to 
take in all the weakness of his opponents. He posted his best men 
opposite the untried Virginia militia, who, as he expected, fired a single 
shot, threw away their arms and fled. The panic spread along the 
lines, and a great part of the army fled without a blow. The Conti- 
nentals, under De Kalb and Gist, fought with coolness and decision, 
pushing the enemy before them. But they were finally so hard pressed 
that one-third of them were killed or wounded and the rest were forced 
to seek safety in the woods. De Kalb, the distinguished French 
commander, fell under eleven wounds. His clothing was stripped from 
him bv the soldiers, and it was onlv when he was discovered by Corn- 



340 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

wallis that any attention was paid to his needs. Gates' army was 
practically annihilated, and the militia, who never felt under obligations 
to remain in organized force, returned to their homes. Within a few 
days Gates gathered together such of his men as could be found, with 
the intention of forming a new army, making his headquarters one 
hundred and eighty miles from his dreadful defeat. 

Comwallis determined to subdue South Carolina before Congress 
could send another army. With Tarleton and Ferguson, two unrelenting 
persecutors of patriots, to help him, he started out on a journey through 
the State. In many of the smaller engagements all through the 
southern country Cornwallis had had reason to believe that success 
would soon crown the English arms. He therefore followed the 
Americans with enthusiasm and on the 8th of October fought the battle 
of King's Mountain, near the boundary line of North and South 
Carolina. Here Cornwallis suffered, losing about one-fourth of his 
fighting force. He sent to New York for reinforcements and spent the 
time mainly in attempts to meet with Sumpter, or Marion, or some of 
the other partisan leaders who waged constant hostilities. In the 
autumn. Green arrived to take command of the remnant of the army 
which Gates had so nearly destroyed. He came with Washington's 
warm recommendation, but it was feared that he could do little, so 
reduced was the southern army and so illy provided with necessities, 
(yreen did not believe that the army could sustain an active campaign, 
and began with a policy exactly opposite to that of Gates. His plan 
was to avoid a general battle as long as possible, to delay the enemy at 
every step of his progress — to tire him out, as it were. His army 
moved into South Carolina in two bodies, the larger part of which was 
commanded by the General himself and the other by Morgan. Green 
moved steadily towards Cornwallis, and only halted when he was about 
seventy miles east of him. Tarleton was sent in pursuit of Morgan, 
who, it was feared, threatened the whole line of posts in the rear of the 
British army. So great was his anxiety that Cornwallis himself, instead 
of moving upon Green, tried to intercept Morgan. This American 
general was therefore forced into an engagement. He chose a field of 
open woods in which his cavalry could easih- maneuvre, and behind 
which there were two hills which he could use in case of need as a 
protection. He posted four hundred men on the first eminence and in 
front placed militia and skirmishers. On the second eminence was 
Colonel Washington's famous cavalry and a corps of mounted infantry. 
Rehind them were the horses and militia, ready either for pursuit or 



"l HAVE SENT YOU A GENERAL." 34I 

flight. Eight hundred men were on the field and all were so well 
disposed, that when Tarleton looked at them he thought that the enemy 
was at least two thousand strong. The English came on with a rush — 
one of those charges which have made them famous in battle fields all 
over the world. They were met with a deadly fire, and when the first 
line was broken through, the second stood valiantly for a time and then 
gave way. Colonel Washington, with his cavalry, charged upon the 
wing, broke straight through a line and charged again from the rear. 
He found himself then at the rear of the other wing of the forces, and 
fell upon them there, while Morgan conducted the conflict in front. 
The English prayed for quarter, and it was with much difficulty that 
the American commanders kept their soldiers from slaughtering 
Tarleton' s men as Tarleton' s men had slaughtered so many of their 
comrades. Tarleton lost six hundred prisoners out of his thousand 
men; one hundred were dead upon the field; his two guns, his colors, 
eight hundred muskets, one hundred dragoon horses and a large part of 
his baggage train were in the hands of the enemy. Upon the American 
side only twelve were killed and sixty wounded. But still Green knew 
that discretion compelled him to act upon the defensive rather than the 
offensive. His orders to Morgan were, therefore, to retreat and join the 
main army, which he did. Cornwallis pushed on through the State, 
and Green slowly retreated before him in good order. 

The American army grew, by reinforcements from the Virginia and 
Carolina militia, to forty-three hundred men, but as nearly three-fourths 
of this force were raw recruits, the strength of the army was not 
materially added to. March 15, 1781 — the winter having been passed 
by Green in eluding Cornwallis — Green made a stand near Guilford 
Court House and awaited the enemy. The battle field was well chosen, 
the men being under good commanders. They were well placed, and 
there was no essential point of weakness except the inexperience of the 
greater part of the men. The British, as usual, advanced steadily and 
quickly, and as usual the American militia fired one shot and then fled. 
But a few of them held their ground until the British charged with 
their bayonets, then they also fled, and the conflict was left to Green's 
regulars who fought desperately. Colonel Washington, with his 
splendid cavalr}-, was there, in which one expert swordsman cut down 
thirteen of the enemy. There were many hand-to-hand encounters. 
The fight was a desperate one, but Cornwallis' force was so held that in 
the end the Americans retreated, though they did so slowly and in good 
order. Cornwallis lost nearly one-fourth of his army. The victor}- 



342 rHE STORY OF AMERICA. 

was with the British, but they paid far too great a price for it. Green's 
army was too exhausted to venture an attack the next day and Corn- 
wallis, who said that he was tired of going about the Carolinas in 
search of adventure, wrote a letter to his Commander-in-chief, begging 
that he might be allowed to quit the Carolinas and put his army in 
march for Wilmington, Green started after him in hurried pursuit, 
but he was not able to overtake him. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History — Draper's "King's Mountain and^its Heroes." 
Fiction — W. G. Simnis' "The Partisan." 

C. H. Wiley's "Alamance." 
POKTRY — "Battle of King's Mountain." 

William C. nr\'ant's "Sons.; of Marion's Men." 



CHAPTER LXV. 

ARNOLD'S EXPEDITION — BATTLE BETWEEN CORNWALLIS AND LAFAY- 
ETTE — THE SIEGE OF YORKTOWN AND SURRENDER OF 
CORNWALLIS — THE SACKING OF NEW 
LONDON BY ARNOLD. 



^HAT," Arnold once asked of a prisoner, "would 
be done with me if I should be captured by the 
Americans?" The prisoner replied: "If my 
countrymen should catch you, I believe they 
would cut off that lame leg, which was 
wounded in the cause of freedom and virtue, 
and bur>' it with the honors of war, and after- 
ward hang the remainder of your body on gibbets." 
The answer was, probably, a reflex of Arnold's own 
fears. He could no longer be relied upon for daring 
attack, and was sent by Clinton upon marauding expedi- 
tions. It was he who was selected to lead the expedition 
to Virginia, the sole purpose of which was harassing 
and ravaging any part of the country where he could 
do so with safety to his men. Arnold had with him a force of nine 
hundred. He landed at Westover, on the James river, and marched to 
Richmond. Here he divided his troops, remaining, himself, in Rich- 
mond, to destroy much private property, militar}^- stores and public 
archives. The detachment which he had sent on an excursion of 
destruction was met by Baron Steuben, but not checked by him. 
Arnold went as far as Portsmouth, wreaking his anger and bitterness 
upon the countr}' he passed through. Congress and the Commander-in- 
chief were seriously distressed. Their impulse was to send immediate 
help, but this they were in a bad condition to do. Thirteen hundred 
Pennsylvania men had mutinied. There had been a misunderstanding 
about the term of their enlistment, and the neglect which they had 
sustained at the hands of Congress irritated them beyond endurance. 




344 • I'HE STORY OF AMERICA. 

They were not lacking, as their man)- hard-fought fields testified, in 
patriotism, but their physical suffering, added to a sense of having been 
imposed upon, was more than the)- could patiently stand. That they 
were patriotic, is shown by the fact that the eijiissaries sent by Sir 
Henry Clinton, offering them aid and protection if they would join the 
English standard, were delivered to the proper authorities to be 
executed as spies. With a great effort the States raised a large sum of 
money to quiet the complaints of the soldiers. In Februar)', Washing- 
ton was able to make preparations for a campaign in Virginia, which 
should oppose Arnold's progress. He sent a detachment of twelve 
hundred New England troops, under Lafayette. These he ordered to 
the head of Chesapeake bay, where they weic to embark for the lower 
part of Virginia. The British fleet had been recently disabled by a 
storm, and Washington was anxious that his French allies should seize 
this time to send the whole French squadron to the bay, in aid of the 
mo\ement under Lafayette. These started, but in an engagement with 
the English were defeated, and sent back to Newport. When Clinton 
heard this, he sent General Phelps, with an additional force of two 
thousand men, to take command in Virginia. These followed the same 
plan which Arnold's troops had done. They did not fight, but they 
ravaged. Steuben was sent to pursue him, and the two generals chased 
each other about the country, without either much profit or harm. The 
great point with the English was to deprive Green of men and supplies. 

Cornwallis was still at the south, and hoped to conquer the colonies 
by moving northward from Georgia. When his force moved up to join 
that of Arnold and Phelps, Lafayette was largely outnumbered, and he 
fell back to make a junction with Antony Wayne, who was approaching 
with eight hundred Pennsylvania men. Cornwallis had little respect 
for Lafayette. So bo)'ish was the young French general that the 
Englishman could not believe that he understood or could apply 
military tactics. But the first engagement between the forces was a 
drawn battle. Lafayette's men in the retreat were maneuvred with 
cleverness. The vexation of Cornwallis was added to by the fact that 
Clinton begged him to send three thousand of his men northward to 
his relief Cornwallis was ordered to put himself behind the defences 
at Portsmouth, and, as soon as he started for this place, Lafayette 
followed after in close pursuit. Lafayette received some severe checks 
on this march. 

Green, meantime, was marching southward. One of the English 
forts was taken. This success was due to the erection of a wooden 



THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 345 

tower of logs, so tall that it could overlook the stockade. Here the 
sharpshooters could pick off the garrison without danger to themselves. 
In course of time other forts were taken by the same means. Thus the 
hostilities at the South progressed. They were made up mostly of 
skirmishes, to which the name of battles could not be appropriately 
applied, but the fighting was fierce, and the consequences marked. 
The personal partisanship of the colonies grew, rather than decreased, 
and all the while a net was slowly closing about the English. Green 
was frequently defeated and compelled to retreat, but as the enemy fol- 
lowed up his forces, they became only the more enmeshed in the web 
which he was weaving about them. Washington himself crossed the 
Delaware and reinforced Lafayette. Following him came Rochambeau 
with his force. Clinton was mewed in New York, and, as his call for 
reinforcements showed, was continually expecting an attack from Wash- 
ington. In fact, Washington had been threatening that city all summer, 
and his rapid movements toward the South were unknown by Clinton 
for some time. De Grasse, the admiral of the French fleet, had been 
requested by Washington to come from the West Indies and join him in 
the Chesapeake. As Washington neared the lower part of that bay and 
learned that the summons had been promptly obeyed, he rode back to 
tell Rochambeau himself, waving his hat and calling to the French 
commander like a child. This, he felt sure, was the herald of victor}- 
and peace. Fifteen hundred men were carried down the Chesapeake 
Bay in boats to the mouth of the James river. The rest went to 
Annapolis by aid of the French frigates and then marched overland. 
Washington had time to stop for a day at his beautiful home, Mount 
Vernon, and to entertain Rochambeau and all the other officers for a 
few hurried hours. On the arrival of this large force Cornwallis with- 
drew behind the fortifications which he had built to defend Yorktown. 
The American and French generals promptly laid works by which the 
town might be approached — for the first time conducting a regular 
siege by the system of scientific and technical warfare. On September 
30th the town was surrounded. Cornwallis did all that he could to 
annoy the men at work. This was the utmost that he could do. On 
October 9th fire was opened by the besiegers, and one by one the 
batteries and cannons of Cornwallis were rendered useless. He wrote a 
letter begging Clinton to come to his help lest army and navy should 
be lost. He made one attempt in the night to cross the York river and 
escape, but a violent storm put an end to these plans, and on October 
19th this brave general surrendered upon honorable terms. His most 



346 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

important redoubts had been carried by assault. He had been crowded 
within the innermost part of his works. All avenues of escape were 
shut off. There were many sick and wounded among his men, and it 
would have been selfish and grossly inhuman to have required more 
fighting from them. On the ver>' day that he surrendered, Clinton 
sailed from New York to the relief of Yorktown, but learning that 
every British soldier in Virginia was a prisoner of war, put back again. 
With it he sent the history of a dishonorable triumph which he 
hoped would counterbalance it somewhat. This triumph was that of 
an expedition against New London, commanded by Arnold. Arnold 
landed his force at the mouth of the Thames river on September 6th. 
He divided his force in two columns and marched one column up each 
side of the river. His own home had been in New London, and he 
made use of his local knowledge of the town to direct the troops which 
had been sent to destroy it. Cornwallis, it is said, refused to have him 
under his command in Virginia, and it was this that caused his diversion 
northward. The expedition against New London had been proposed 
by the Commander-in-chief to divert Washington's attention from the 
South. It was hoped that he might return to the protection of New 
England. New London was surrounded and burnt. The militia of 
the neighborhood gathered in Fort Griswold, but they had not nearly 
force enough to man the parapets. Arnold's men were crazy with 
liquor. These poured over the earthworks and demanded surrender. 
Ledyard, the American commander, ordered his men to throw down 
their amis and surrender to Major Bronfield, who was at the head of 
the Englishmen. That officer stabbed Ledyard with his own sword as 
he surrendered it and a general massacre followed in which the whole 
garrison were killed or wounded. Of these, only three had been killed 
before Led}'ard had given the order to surrender. The dead were 
stripped of their clothing, and when preparations were made for blowing 
up the magazine of the fort, the wounded were piled upon a wagon and 
which, being sent rolling down the steep hill, against a tree, many of 
the wounded were killed by the shock. Groton, on the other side 
of the river, was also burnt, though Arnold, it is said, had the humanity 
to direct that a few of the houses, belonging to old friends, should be 
spared. 

FOR FURTHER READING : 

Fiction — J. P. Kennedy's "Horseshoe Robinson." 
J. P. Sinuns' "Tlic Scout." 

"Catherine Walton." 
■Woodcraft." 
"Foragers." 
" •' "Eutaw." 



CHAPTER LXVI 



>}p yhmsl^nn Ynm^ ilp ^urnrb. 



CONDITION OF THE COUNTRY AT THE CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION — 
JOHN ADAMS MADE MINISTER TO ENGLAND — THE DISBAND- 
ING OF THE ARMY — THE CALL FOR DELEGATES TO 



CONSTRUCT A CONSTITUTION. 



HE surrender of Cornwallis did not end the troubles 
of this country. The people were neither at war 
nor at peace. They were very poor, terribly in 
debt, with a standing army which they dare not 
dissolve still on their hands, and no government 
except that of the Continental Congress. Com- 
merce could not be conducted upon the seas without 
danger. The fisheries were not yet open to Americans, 
and the English still held some of the military posts. 
To remedy these troubles and bring about a condition 
of greater order and prosperity, was the ambition of 
every man in America; but from the outset, they were 
divided as to the means. One party desired that the 
country might have a general government. The other 
preferred that each State should have a government of its 
own, but that for safety, all should be united in a confederation. Thus, 
for several years after the war, the country was in a state of half peace, 
which was most unhappy in its effects. Meanwhile the political 
disagreements of the people strengthened and multiplied. The weak- 
ness of the confederation was becoming apparent. Congress had only 
an advisory power. It could compel no measures and had always to 
wait for the sanction of the people in everything. It was remarked at 
the time that it could not even command the money to buy the quills 
with which the pens for writing the laws were made. It had been 
necessary for years to run the government and the army upon loans. 
Franklin, John Adams and the other commissoners in Europe had 




348 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

talked constantly about the great value of American lands, and thus 
money was easily secured from European financiers. But the money 
borrowed was insufficient to meet the demands of the people, and paper 
currency had been issued. In course of time two hundred million 
dollars of Continental currency was sent afloat. Congress seemed to 
think for a time that to make money it needed only to have a printing 
press which could send out crisp sheets of paper. But this currenc> 
fell steadily in value until, in 1779, one hundred paper dollars were 
worth only two and a half dollars in silver. The last issue of the 
Continental currency still exist in the large sheets in which they were 
printed. The man who received the sheet from the public treasury did 
not think it worth while to cut it into separate bills. The country now 
needed specie, and this began to be furnished in small quantities by the 
payment of gold, which the French commissaries paid for the supplies 
they required for their men. Trade was slowly opening up with 
Europe again, and every shipment brought a little valuable coin to the 
impoverished commerce of America. The right to the fisheries of 
eastern waters and the right to dry fish on the uninhabited lands of the 
coast were secured to the Americans by John Adams, who obtained it 
with great persistence. 

Scarcely had the war terminated, when each countr}' charged the 
other with the violation of the treaty of peace. The disputes were so 
hot that it was decided to hasten the appointment of a minister 
plenipotentiary to the court of Great Britain. In February, 1785, 
John Adams was made Ambassador to represent the United States at 
that court. Meantime, civil war on the northern American frontier had 
more than once seemed certain. Vermont was determined to preserve 
her independence, in spite of the claims of New York on the one side, 
and New Hampshire on the other. She had asked again and again for 
admission to the Union, but this had been denied her, partly because of 
the jealousy of her neighbors, and partly for the reason that the 
Southern States were unwilling to have a Northern State entered with- 
out a Southern one to counterbalance it. Vermont had no political 
existence as a distinct colony of the Crown, at the time that the thirteen 
other States were created into a confederacy by the agreement of the 
representatives, and it was now claimed that this was one reason why 
her pra)'er should not be granted. The "Green Mountain Boys" felt 
that if the Union owed nothing to them, they, in turn, owed nothing 
to the Union. They therefore threatened to offer Great Britain terms 
of peace and allegiance. Only then did Congress awaken to the danger 



THE PLOWSHARE VERSUS THE SWORD. 349 

which threatened. In the spring of 1781 a force of ten thousand men 
from Canada threatened an invasion across the northern border. 
Washington dared not spare a man from his army. The panic every- 
where was intense. Letters were written by certain English generals 
to Ethan Allen, begging the people of Vermont to return to their 
allegiance to the King, and promising, in the case of her revolt against 
the United States, she would be made an independent British province. 
Perhaps the people of Vermont never had any intention of accepting 
this invitation, and that they only endeavored to mislead their country- 
men for the purpose of making them do as they wished, but it is certain 
that for a time they were considered as very dangerous and treacherous 
neighbors by the inhabitants of the States. Concessions were made by 
New York and New Hampshire, and Vermont was given the boundary 
lines which she herself had drawn, so that when peace was declared 
Vermont was not a British province. She was not, however, admitted 
as a State to the Union till 1791. 

In these years of turmoil and perplexity one of the things which 
distressed Washington, and the people in general, was that the English 
continued to hold New York, Charleston and Savannah. While the 
enemy was still in the country it was impossible for Washington to dis- 
band his army, and the men, without pay and with little to eat or wear, 
became exceedingly discontented and mischievous. They now knew by 
experience what they could do by force of arms, and it is little wonder 
that they plotted among themselves to bring about a state of affairs 
which would give them increased importance and comfort. Letters 
were circulated in camp, setting forth the injustice with which the army 
had been treated, and suggesting that it refuse to disband unless its 
rightful dues were paid, and that Congress be told that this army 
continue to exist and would keep its arms. A meeting was called on 
the nth of March. The writers and instigators of the letters had an idea 
that the army would take the position for America which Cromwell's 
army took for England. The leader of this army might, as Cromwell 
had done, place himself at the head of the nation. When news of 
these letters reached Washington, he asked the representatives of the 
army to meet him for the purpose of talking the matter over. In the 
meantime, a second letter was written which was even more outspoken 
than the first. When Washington met the representatives thej' had 
profited by reflection, and were prepared to receive in a humble spirit 
the stern rebuke which Washington gave them. After setting forth 
the true nature of these letters, exposing all the sophistry in them, and 



350 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

calling their treasonable intentions by their right names, he begged the 
army to have confidence in Congress, and promised to do all that he 
could himself in their behalf. Resolutions were passed which declared 
that the army viewed with abhorrence and rejected with disdain the 
sueeestions of the letters. Washingfton's common sense alone saved 
the country, if not from overthrow, at least from terrible disaster. The 
many wean- months that followed before the soldiers were allowed to 
return to their homes, were endured with comparative patience. At 
one time a company of eighty recruits mutinied and took possession of 
the State House in Philadelphia, but in a short time this insurrection 
died from its own feebleness. 

On November 25, 1782, New York was evacuated by the British, 
and Washington marched in with his army to take possession. A little 
less than a month afterwards the Commander-in-chief met his compan- 
ions in arms at Fraunces Tavern to take leave of them. It would be 
difiicult to imagine a scene of more dignified pathos. For years 
Washington and many of his officers had been in the closest association. 
They were more than comrades — they were friends — and the terrible 
trials which they had undergone together, the great risks which they 
had run, the difficulties which they had overcome, bound them as no 
prosperous acquaintanceship could have done. Washington spoke a 
few broken words of farewell, and the ofl!icers dispersed. On the 29th 
of December he returned his commission to Congress, which was then 
at Annapolis in public session. 

On September 3, 1783, the final treaty of peace was signed at Paris, 
by which Great Britain acknowledged the United States to be free, 
sovereign, and independent. At this time Philadelphia was the chief 
city in the country', having a population of forty thousand. This was 
three times greater than that of New York and twice as large as that of 
Boston. New York was still suffering from the effects of the devasta- 
tion caused by the war. In New England the people were busy with 
ship-building and coast trading. Throughout the Middle States 
manufacturing was rapidly increasing. The Southern States were 
made up of plantations worked by slaves. 

Between England and America the balance of trade against this 
country was greatly increasing. Within two years after peace was 
declared the value of goods imported from England into the United 
States was nearly thirty million dollars, while the exports for the same 
time were only between eight and nine millions. What little good 
money there was in the United States was thus drawn off" to England, for 



THE PLOWSHARE VERSUS THE SWORD. 35 1 

the young manufactures of America could not, it goes without saying, 
compete with those of England. In 1783 the debt of the United States 
was forty-two millions, and that of the separate States, twenty millions. 
There was no mint, and both Congress and States continued to issue 
currency. It was in vain that Congress implored the States to provide 
means for paying their debts. England, with difficulty, collected the 
debts due her by the Americans, and it looked as if the States, for com- 
mercial reasons alone, might be forced to yield their independence and 
return to a country which would at least provide them with a government 
and an exchecquer. The Congress of Delegates, which had been fonned 
with such haste at the breaking out of the Revolution, and which was 
composed of men from all parts of the countr}^, was not equal to meeting 
the present emergencies. Washington himself, who never made a 
written statement without deep thought and reflection, admitted that 
Congress was not able to execute the functions of government. John 
Adams wrote from England that so contemptible was America in the eyes 
of Great Britain that she was not considered at all in state matters. 
Thomas Jefferson was Minister to France, and was obliged to exercise 
all of his ingenuity to keep America and American commerce 
rightly before the French court. Since the disregard of government 
was so great in the old States, it is not surprising that on the frontier 
this was carried to still greater lengths. In the Wyoming country of 
Pennsylvania there had long been a dispute concerning boundaries and 
rights which reached a crisis in 1786. The settlers took up arms and 
declared their intention to form a new State, but they were suppressed 
as rioters. In the western part of North Carolina a number of counties 
set up an independent government, calling themselves the State of 
Franklin, but this soon came to an end through internal troubles. In 
several different places efforts were made by armed mobs to prevent the 
sitting of courts and legislatures, but like most mobs, these were 
dissolved with comparatively little trouble. About this time Alexander 
Hamilton proposed that a national convention meet at Philadelphia in 
May, 1787, for the purpose of providing a new constitution which 
should give strength to the Federal Government. Addresses were sent 
to the legislatures asking them to send delegates to this convention. In 
Congress, the party which objected to the consolidation of power was the 
stronger, and this only consented to the convention on the condition 
that it confine itself to revising the articles of confederation. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

FicTlox— J. E. Cooke's "The Youth of Jefferson." "Rose Hill." 
J. P. Kennedy's "Swallow Barn." 



CHAPTER LXVII. 



"liirsi in liar, liirsl in Jme." 



THE FORMINCx OF THE CONSTITUTION — WASHINGTON ELECTED 

PRESIDENT. 



HE convention met at the time appointed, 
with George Washington in the chair. The 
legislative chambei was the same in which the 
Declaration of Independence had been signed, 
and many of the signers were then present. 
The most influential men of the States were 
there, many of them differing bitterly in opinion, but 
all agreeing in their desire to give to the United States 
a constitution which should add to its dignity and 
power. The greatest cause of dispute was about the 
preponderance of power. The question was: Should 
power rest in the people, or in Congress? In other 
words, should the general government coerce the States, 
or should the States be sovereign to themselves? The 
promise that the convention was only to revise the 
articles of confederation as Congress desired was, of course, brought to 
notice. Various plans were laid before the House by Alexander 
Hamilton, and other leaders of public thought. All of these were 
considered in turn. Randolph, of Virginia, and Patterson, of New 
Jersey, had plans of government which were long debated upon. But 
so angry and hopeless did the debates become, that even the calmest 
and most judicious despaired of reaching any results. Benjamin 
Franklin, an old man now, was present, and in the midst of these diflli- 
culties and misunderstandings he arose and made this speech: "It is to 
be feared that the members of this convention are not in temper, at 
this moment, to approach the subject on which we differ, in a candid 
spirit. I would, therefore, propose, Mr. President, that, without pro- 
ceeding further in this business at this time, the convention shall 








GEORGE WASHINGTON. 

After painting by John Gilbert Charles Stuart and engraving- by James Heath, Athenffium, Boston. 



"first in war, first in peace." 353 

adjourn for three days, in order to let the present ferment pass off, 
and to afford time for a more full, free and dispassionate investi- 
gation of the subject; and I would earnestly recommend to the members 
of this convention that they spend the time of this recess, not in asso- 
ciating with their own party and devising new arguments to fortify 
themselves in their old opinions, but that they mix with members of 
opposite sentiments, lend a patient ear to their reasonings, and candidly 
allow them all the weight to which they may be entitled; and when 
we assemble again I hope it will be with a determination to form a 
Constitution, if not such a one as we can individually and in all respects 
approve, yet the best which, under existing circumstances, can be 
obtained. Before I sit down, Mr. President, I will suggest another 
matter, and I am really surprised that it has not been proposed by some 
other member at an earlier period of our deliberations. I wall suggest, 
Mr. President, the propriety of nominating and appointing, before we 
separate, a chaplain to this convention, whose duty it shall be 
uniformly to assemble with us and introduce the business of each day 
b}' imploring the assistance of Heaven, and asking Its blessing upon 
our deliberations." The three days were spent in the manner which 
Dr. Franklin advised, and, on reassembling, the chaplain who had been 
appointed appeared and led the devotions of the assembly. Dr. 
Franklin addressed the house first, as everyone expected and desired 
that he should do. His wisdom, experience, common sense and deep- 
seated calmness gave a placidity to the convention which it had not had 
before. With more earnest intentions the convention renewed its work. 
The Constitution was finally amended. It prescribed that the laws of 
the United States were, thenceforth, to be administered, not by a 
confederacy or mere league of friendship between the sovereign States, 
but by a government distributed into three great departments — legisla- 
tive, judicial and executive; that the powers of government should be 
limited to concerns pertaining to the whole people, leaving the internal 
administration of each vState in time of peace to its own constitutional 
laws, provided, that they should be republican, and interfering with 
them as little as possible in case of war; that the legislative 
power of this government should be divided between the two 
assemblies, one representing directly the people of the separate States, 
and the other their legislatures; that the executive power of this 
government should be vested in one person, chosen for four years, with 
certain qualifications of age and nativity, and invested with a qualified 
negative upon the enactments of the laws; and that the judicial power 



354 'r^E STORY OF AMERICA. ' 

should consist of tribunals, inferior and supreme, to be instituted and 
organized by Congress, the judges removable only by impeachment. 
Washington signed the Constitution first, remarking solemnly as he did 
so: "Should the States reject this excellent Constitution, the probability 
is that an opportunity will never again be offered to cancel another in 
peace; the next will be drawn in blood." With three exceptions the 
Constitution was signed by all the delegates present. The convention, 
however, which framed the Constitution, was not clothed with legisla- 
tive power, and the Constitution was, therefore, referred to the several 
States. In the summer of 1788, nine of the States ratified it. Rhode 
Island was the last of the thirteen original States to accept the Constitu- 
tion, which she did in May, 1790. The year of suspense was full of 
internal troubles. In New York, the brilliant young Alexander 
Hamilton led the Federal party with dramatic fervor, and when his 
triumph was made apparent by the ratification of the Constitution, a 
great festival was held in New York City. There was a procession of 
traders, merchants, artisans and professional men, who bore aloft on 
their banners the names of Washington and Hamilton, and a frigate 
fully manned, called the Federal ship "Hamilton," was borne on wheels 
through the streets, her cannons replying to the salutes with whicli she 
was greeted. 

The first Congress met in New York on March 4, 1789. When the 
votes of the Presidential electors were counted, the first choice was 
unanimous for Washington. John Adams received the largest number 
of votes for Vice-President. A special messenger was sent by the 
president of the Senate to notify Washington of his election. This 
great man was living quieth' at his princely home of Mount Vernon. 
His home life was very dear to him, and it was with the most painful 
reluctance that he took upon himself once more the burdens of the 
nation. As Washington traveled from his home in Virginia to New 
York, which was now the seat of government, he received enthusiastic 
greetings everywhere. At Trenton, where he had fought with such 
brilliancy, a triumphal arch was thrown across the bridge which he was 
to cross. The arch was supported on thirteen pillars, which were 
wreathed with flowers and bore inscriptions which must have been 
deeply gratifying to him. IJeneath this arch stood a party of young 
girls with baskets of flowers in their hands, and they greeted Washington 
with a song which had been composed for the occasion, strewing flowers 
before him as they sang. As he neared New York a delegation was 
sent to meet him. A barge, with a crew of thirteen to represent the 



"FIRST IN WAR, FIRST IN PEACE." 355 

colonies, was for his special use, and following this, with flying flags, 
came many other boats. The Governor of the State and many other 
distinguished persons awaited Washington at the wharf and escorted 
him to his quarters, Washington preferring to walk up the crowded 
streets that he might seem to enter the city in humbleness and good 
fellowship. A few days later the ceremony of inauguration took place 
in the balcony of what was then the Senate chamber. This was called 
Federal Hall, and it stood at the meeting of four streets, which were 
crowded to suffocation with people. Washington came on the balcony, 
and the Chancellor of New York read the inaugural oath to him. After 
the oath was administered, the people cried, "Long live George 
Washington, President of the United States!" But this was a reminder 
of kingly customs which was never repeated for any other President, 
Flags were raised, cannons were fired and bells were rung, launching 
in with joyful burst of song the new Republic, with a magistrate at its 
head who, for wisdom, disinterestedness and pure patriotism, has never 
been equaled by any following President save one. This was April 
30, 1789. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Curtis' "History of the Constitution." 

Frothingham's "Rise of the Republic." 
Fiction— N. M. Curtis' "Doom of the Toi^ Guard.' 



CHAPTER LXVIII, 



HAMILTON'S POLICY AS THE FIRST SECRETARY OF STATE — INCREASE 
OF AMERICAN COMMERCE — THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY 
(p^ — FRONTIER TROUBLES AT THE WEST. 





LEXANDER HAMILTON was made Secretary 
^ of the Treasury, an office hardly second in 
iniportance to that of the President itself at this 
time. If the nation was to be restored to pros- 
perity, it rested upon him to devise efficient 
measures. Hamilton's policy from the first was 
to give notice to the Old World that the new Federal 
government assumed all the obligations of the old 
confederation, and provided, as that enfeebled body 
had not been able to do, for their discharge. Ham- 
ilton succeeded in getting the government to assume 
the State debts. One of the first acts of Congress was 
to pass a tariff bill, for Hamilton and many others 
believed that protection was the only system possible 
in that stage of national life and in the condition of 
the civilized world. A national bank was started which was under 
private direction, and yet served the government by making it owner 
of one-fifth of the capital stock of ten million dollars and the preferred 
borrower to the same amount. A hundred minor matters were attended 
to by the Secretary with equal care. The sale of public lands increased, 
regulations were made for the coast trade, navigation laws enacted, 
revenue cutters established, light-houses built, and numerous plans 
were formed for the sustaining of law and good order. A bill was passed 
imposing a duty on imported domestic spirits, for the purpose of swelling 
the revenue. American enterprise soon felt the benefit of these 
measures. In 1787 the French government issued a decree placing 
American citizens on the same commercial footing as Frenchmen, and 



STARTING THE WHEELS OF PROGRESS. 357 

admitting American produce free of dut\-. As France had a free trade 
treaty with England, this act had much to do with the ceasing of com- 
mercial hostilities between America and England, When war broke 
out between France and England, the carrying trade of the world fell 
into the hands of the United States. The trade with the West Indies 
became almost wholly American, for French ships could not go there. 
Spanish trade was carried on under a neutral flag and English merchants 
found it safer to use American vessels. Great commercial houses came 
into existence. The trade with China and East India became a source 
of wealth, and the seamen of America were counted remarkable for their 
enterprise and courage. 

The question of slaver}^ was one of the most important with which 
the Federal Congress interested itself. It was held that Congress had no 
power over slavery in the States, but that it had power in the terri- 
tories. By the ordinance of 1787, all the territory northwest of the 
Ohio then belonging to the United States, and comprising what is now 
the States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, was to 
be the home of free labor forever. Slaves had become especially valu- 
able in the South by the growth of the cotton industry. In 1793, 
Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin. America has been the home of 
many great inventions, but none of them have been of greater import- 
ance than this to the Republic. It was the first key which was applied 
to the unlocking of the natural capabilities of this land. Whitney was 
the son of a ]\Iassachusetts farmer. He chanced to visit Georgia and 
saw there the great difficulty with which the seed was separated from 
the cotton. After a few months of hard study he invented a successful 
machine which in one da)-, by the labor of a single hand, could do 
more than was usually performed in many months by the old method. 
Whitney afterward made a fortune by the invention of fire-arms. The 
slave was thought to be a necessary part of the cotton trade, and there- 
fore assumed an importance in American affairs which it had never 
before held. It is very interesting to note how good and bad tendencies 
seemed to conflict with each other at this period of national history. 
x\t this very time an impetus was given to public educational matters 
which they had never received before. Education for all was a part of 
the free government. Noah Webster began the publication of his 
school books and gave his life up to the establishment of a national 
literature. In these matters the young States led, rather than followed, 
the older ones. Civilization spread westward and marked its progress by 
a series of triumphs over the savages and the soil. John C. Symmes 



358 



THK vSTORY OK AMERICA. 



obtained a grant of one million acres, bounded on the south by the Ohio, 
and on the west by the Miami, and here, in 1788-9, South Bend and 
Cincinnati were settled. 

The English still retained some of the frontier posts, and about 
these the Indians continually flocked. They were persuaded by the 
English that the Americans had no claim to any territor)- beyond the 
Ohio, and in truth every State westward had been an encroachment 
upon Indian territory. Indian warfare upon the settlers, therefore, 
took on its worst form here. At no time were the settlers safe. The 
man who left his home in the morning never knew whether he should 




NVASIIINt.TON S TRI.ASl RE CHtbT. (l-rOtll a pllOto>jr.ipll. ) 

return alive to it or not, and would have felt no surprise if on returning 
he should find his wife and children dead in his cabin. Several villages 
were plundered and burned, and every train of emigrants was sure to 
encounter danger, if not death. On the Ohio and other rivers many 
tragic scenes were enacted. The Indians would watch for a passing 
boat, murder the passengers, and let the boat-load of corpses drift with 
the flow of the stream to the settlements below. In seven years fifteen 
hundred persons were killed or captured by the Indians on the Ohio, 
and twenty thousand horses were stolen. It was in vain that the 
Americans sued for a treaty of peace. War was forced upon them — a 



STARTING THE WHEELS OF PROGRESS. 359 

war whicli ended in disaster the most serious ever sustained by an 
American army in its battles with the Indians. 

In the month of September, 1790, General Harmar was intrusted 
with the duty of subduing the fierce tribes on the Miami and Wabash. 
The general had with him a body of three hundred and twenty regulars, 
who, being reinforced b>- the militia of Pennsylvania and Kentucky, 
formed a corps of four hundred and fifty-three men. Upon his approach 
the Indians set fire to their villages, but they could not be brought to 
an engagement. At length the Americans were unexpectedly attacked 
and severely disabled. After this humiliation to the United States, 
Congress, in the following year, 1791, strengthened the national 
militar}' force and placed in the hands of President Washington larger 
means for the protection of the frontier. General St. Clair, then 
Governor of the territory west of the Ohio, was appointed commander 
of a large force. When Washington parted from him he impressed 
upon him again and again the danger of a surprise. "You know how 
Indians fight," said he; "I repeat it, beware of a surprise." St. Clair 
went out into the wilderness wnth these words ringing in his ears, but 
on the 4th of November, while the regulars were encamped on one of 
the tributaries of the W^abash and the militia were resting upon a high 
fiat on the other side of the stream, they met with that disaster which 
Washington had especially warned them against. The Indians rushed 
upon them at a most unexpected moment, taking advantage of a 
division of the army. Nearly half of St. Clair's force were slaughtered 
and he beat a headlong retreat. His militia had proved useless, and 
even his regulars had been panic-stricken. The Indians, as usual, fought 
from cover, and against them the fire of the Americans, aimed at random 
into a dusky forest, could have little effect. The pursuit was kept up 
about four miles, when, fortunately for the Americans who still 
survived, their foes could no longer restrain their eagerness for plunder, 
and returned to rifle the bodies of the dead soldiers. For thirty miles 
the terrified Americans continued their panic-stricken flight, throwing 
away their anns as they went. They left their wounded at Fort Jeffer- 
son and retreated to Fort Washington, at Cincinnati. Washington 
learned of the disaster w ith rage and agony. Never since the interview 
at the battle of Monmouth did he so give way to that terrible wrath of 
which he was capable. Thirty-eight officers and six hundred privates 
were killed or missing, and twenty-one officers and two hundred and forty- 
two privates wounded. Among the camp-followers were two hundred 
and fifty women, most of whom were killed or captured. 



360 THE STORY OF AMERICA, 

No time was lost in sending out another expedition. The indig- 
nation of the people had been roused to the highest pitch. It was 
said that during the fight several British oflScers were seen upon the 
field with the Indians, who had come down from Detroit to urge on 
their savage allies. The man sent out to take St. Clair's place was 
General Anthony Wayne. His courage was reckless, and gained for 
him the name of "Mad Anthony," which he was called by his soldiers 
more in love than criticism. Washington himself carefully instructed 
Wayne in his mode of warfare. Nearly two years passed before Wayne 
had gathered his four thousand men and built the line of forts necessar>' 
to success. He followed Washington's directions implicity during all 
this time. He never permitted his army to be divided, and marched 
with open files that a line might be quickly formed in the thick woods. 
It was his habit to halt early in the afternoon, that the camp might be 
surrounded by a rampart of logs before nightfall. His cavalry laid 
waste the country for many miles on each side of the line of march. 
When he had four good forts behind him to offer protection in case of 
retreat, he decided to* attack. The Indians had consented to an 
engagement, and on the morning of August 20th the two forces met on 
the banks of the Maumee river. The action was short and decisive. 
The cavalry attacked the flanks of the Indian line and the infantry 
charged with the bayonet upon the centre, and as soon as they caused 
a retreat, poured a volley of musket balls into their foes. The Indians 
were pursued until within reach of the guns of the British fort. Here 
the Americans encamped for a few days, destroying all the property in 
the neighborhood. Wayne's loss was comparatively small, and for a 
time the Indians were effectually subdued. A treaty was made with 
them in 1795, by which they ceded a large tract of land to the United 
States, and from that time the "more rapid settlement of the West 
began. 

KOR FURTHER READING; 
History — Flint's "Indian Wars of the West." 
Fiction — Gait's "Lawrie Todd." 

Bird's "Nick of the Woods." 



CHAPTER LXIX. 



>|a iourll^ ¥ima$ of W[n^}}x 



m. 



FRANKLIN — THE HUMOR OF WASHINGTON'S TIME — THE 
1 , POLICY OF HAMILTON — THE PENNSYLVANIA 
) WHISKY RIOTS. 

■'V y 

OT long after Washington became President, one 
of the greatest of Americans died — the first 
scientist, perhaps, which this country had ever 
produced. This was Dr. Benjamin Franklin, 
whose early life has been told of in another part 
of this histor}'. In the courts of England and of 
France he won a consideration which was not paid 
to any other envoy from the young nation. Had he 
been known for no other reason, he would have been 
celebrated as the discoverer of the electric fluid in light- 
ning. He had long been a student of electricity, and 
formed a theory that lightning and the electric fluid 
were the same thing. He was very much laughed at 
when he circulated this idea, in a little pamphlet, and 
he made up his mind to prove it to the satisfaction of everyone. He 
and his young son together made a great kite of a silk handkerchief, 
and fastening a piece of sharpened wire to the stick, went out to fly the 
kite in a thunder-storm. As a low thunder-cloud passed, the electric 
fluid went down the string of the kite and when Franklin touched the 
key that he had fastened to the string, his knuckles drew sparks from it, 
showing that the electricity was there. In a short time he invented the 
lightning rod. 

In all public matters he had great influence, and he founded more 
good institutions and benevolent enterprises than any American of his 
time. The last public act which he performed was to sign a memorial 
to Congress, in behalf of the Philadelphia x\nti-Slaver}^ Society, asking 
the abolition of slavery. He lived to be eighty-four, and died on April 
17, 1790. Throughout the States the mourning was universal, and 




362 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

in France the Assembly went into mourning for him three days. 
At this time the customs and habits of the people of this republic 
were very diflferent from those of the present day. It was a ceremonious 
age — an age of display — and the traditions of royal splendor still 
clung, in a degree, about the capital of the republic. President Wash- 
ington was a man of great wealth, and one who believed that there 
should be distinctions in men, and that honor should be paid to those 
who deserved it. He desired, for instance, that the official name of the 
President should be "High Mightiness," which were the words 
employed in describing the Stadtholder of Holland, which at that time 
was a republic. But this title was objected to, and Excellency was 
substituted. Washington's levees were very stately entertainments, 
and differed exceedingly from the free and easy receptions which are 
at present held at the White House. Once in two weeks at precisely 
three in the afternoon, the doors of the great dining-room were thrown 
open. By the fire-place stood President Washington, with members of 
his Cabinet and other distinguished gentlemen about him. His usual 
dress was a black velvet coat, with white or pearl-colored waistcoat, 
yellow gloves, and silver knee buckles and shoe buckles. His hair was 
powdered and gathered in a silk bag behind. In his hand he carried a 
cocked hat, and wore a long sword, with a scabbard of polished white 
leather. The habit of shaking hands would have been considered too 
familiar at that time, and Washington greeted each of his guests with 
a courteous bow. Mrs. Washington gave brilliant evening levees, 
which it was considered a great privilege to attend. Dinners and 
public meetings were held in all the large towns of the nation on the 
birthday of the President, and the local poets were expected to address 
odes to Washington. When Washington drove to the sessions of Con- 
gress, he went in a state coach, the body of which was in the shape of a 
hemisphere, cream-colored, bordered with flowers around the panels, 
which were ornamented with figures representing cupids, and support- 
ing festoons. On great occasions the coach was drawn b\' six horses, 
on ordinary occasions by four, and on Sundays by two only. The 
driver and postillions wore liveries of white and scarlet. This display 
and formality upon the part of the President influenced the whole 
nation. It was, indeed, but the continuation of the state in which the 
Governors had lived. The forms of politeness were very elaborate, and 
the people devoted much attention and money to their dress. In 
Connecticut and Massachusetts there were still sumptuary laws against 
extravagance, but at this time they were not enforced. Even the 



THE COURTLY TIMES OF WASHINGTON. 



363 



clergymen wore wigs, with gowns and bands, in the pulpit, and cocked 
hats on the streets. The Judges of the Supreme Court, in winter, wore 
robes of scarlet faced with velvet, and in summer, very full black silk 
robes. It is still their practice to wear the latter sort. The ladies 
dressed their hair with powder and pomatmn, and built it to such a 
great height above the head that it became necessary to have carriages 
of greater height made than those which had previously been used. 
At this time Sedan chairs were used as well as carriages, and in these 




FRANKLIN'S GRAVE, PHILADELPHIA. 



the grand dames were carried from place to place by two servants in 
dashing liveries. The ladies themselves were gorgeous in rustling 
brocades, powder, patches and jewels. These patches, which were of 
black silk, were pasted upon the face, and were cut in a great variety 
of fantastic shapes. There were crescents, stars, anchors and even 
elephants, and a belle would sometimes decorate herself with at least 
twenty of these. Gentlemen dressed as brilliantly as the ladies, and in 



364 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

the same sort of fabrics. If a gentleman went abroad, he appeared in 
his wig, white stock, white satin embroidered vest, black satin small 
clothes with white silk stockings and fine broadcloth or velvet coat. 
If at home, a velvet cap, sometimes with a fine linen one nnder it, took 
the place of a wig, while a gown, frequently a colored damask lined 
with silk, was subsitnted for the coat, and the feet were covered with 
leather slippers of some fancy color. No gentleman's costume was 
complete without a snuff-box, and oji these little trifles the greatest art 
was expended. A salutation between friends was immediately followed 
by an offer of snuff, and a man who did not take it laid himself open to 
the charge of being discourteous. 

The nation still felt the influence of Puritan prejudices, and was 
only beginning to tolerate the theatre, which at one time had been 
considered by the stern citizens of Massachusetts as one of the worst 
beguilements of Satan. Massachusetts is spoken of, because in religious 
and philosophic matters she was the leader. Private theatricals, which 
Washington and other fashionable people occasionally had at their 
houses, gradually paved the way for public entertainments. Musical 
concerts were allowed at this time, w^hich, in itself, marked quite a 
growth in public taste and liberality, for at one time they would have 
been considered the height of frivolity. Balls were popular, and some 
of them were given on a very large scale. The French Ambassador 
gave one in Philadelphia which was so large that a building was erected 
on purpose for the entertainment. It is said that on fete da)s the hair- 
dressers were kept so busy that ladies had to employ their services at 4 
or 5 o'clock in the morning, and to sit upright all day to keep from 
disturbing the head-dress. 

It was thought that when the army was disbanded the country 
would be filled with beggars, for it could hardly be expected that men 
who had been kept without other occupation than that of anns for 
eight years, would easily adapt themselves to ways of industr}- again. 
But they went back to their workshops and farms, and places were 
found for them by a people who, although they were capricious, were 
certainly not ungrateful. At that time the working people did not, as 
now, depend upon great monopolies for support. Cloth was spun in 
almost every house; tallow candles made in every kitchen. Wood 
was to be had almost for the chopping, and neighbors exchanged the 
produce of their farms and gardens. 

Secretary Hamilton was doing all in his power to restore the 
commercial confidence of the people and place the government on a 



THE COURTLY TIMES OF WASHINGTON. 365 

sure j&nancial basis. In trying to do this, he took some measures 
which were very distasteful to the people. A bill drawn up by him 
was passed in Congress in March, 1791, which increased the duty on 
imported spirits, making it from twenty to forty cents a gallon, and 
what was still more offensive to the people, laid a tax on distillation, 
The people of various States, held meetings, appointed committees, and 
adopted resolutions asking for an unconditional repeal. Those who 
accepted the ofhces of collectors were treated with every sort of indig- 
nity. Some of them were tarred and feathered, their houses were 
burned, and they were ostracized, although many of them were men of 
high business and social standing. The insurrection gathered rapidly 
and finally organized for resistance to the law. Under the leadership 
of John Holcraft, known more widely as ' 'Tom the Tinker, ' ' the mob 
attacked several houses in Pennsylvania. The handful of militia was 
forced to surrender to them, and the mob burned several houses 
belonging to the law-and-order party. A few days later the mail to 
Philadelphia was stopped and the insurgents took from it several letters 
which gave accounts of the riot. The writers of these letters were 
severely persecuted. The insurgents next summoned the militia to 
meet on Braddock's Field, August i, 1794. Seven thousand came 
armed and provisioned for four days, but when they were told to capture 
Fort Pitt, they dispersed. 

President Washington was alarmed, and fearing that the rebellion 
might spread through the country, called on New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
Mar}'land and Virginia for fifteen thousand men, and sent commissioners 
to the scene of the disturbance, with power to arrange for peaceful 
submission any time before September i4tli. As these commissioners 
soon returned without having come to any satisfactory arrangement, the 
troops were put in motion with the Governors of New Jersey, Pennsyl- 
vania, and Virginia at the heads of their men, under the leadership of 
General Henry Lee. Most of the disturbances were in the counties 
west of the Alleghanies, and the soldiers were obliged to cross these 
mountains, suffering not a little from disease and exposure as they did 
so. The insurrection died quickly upon the appearance of the troops. 
Some of the leaders left the countr}^ and some were arrested and 
brought to trial. Only two were convicted of treason, and these were 
pardoned bv the President. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

Fiction — Charlotte Walsingham's "Annette." 

H. H. Brackenridi'e's •■Modern Chivalrj'." 



CHAPTER LXX. 



% ^Bmnrrat^, 



THE POLITICAL PARTIES OF THE YOUNG NATION — THE JAY TREATY- 
ELECTION OF JOHN ADAMS TO THE PRESIDENCY — 

ALIEN AND SEDITION LAWS 

TROUBLE WITH 
J FRANCE. 

HE influence of the French rebellion was strongly 
felt in America, and the discontented among the 
people showed a willingness to imitate, upon the 
slightest provocation, the example of the French 
people. The old French monarchy had been over- 
thrown, and an attempt made to establish a republic 
in its place — an attempt which had led to violence 
and bloodshed which had never been equaled in the 
history of civilized nations. This struggle Americans 
watched with much interest. They were not free from a 
disinterested desire to see their great ally firmly estab- 
lished in a republic such as they themselves were foimd- 
ing. Jefferson had long been in Paris, and was among 
the company of brilliant fanatics whose heads were after- 
wards sacrificed to the relentless commune. Of all of 
them, he was the only one whose dream of power was finally realized, 
and who, in later years, stood at the head of a nation. The party in 
America which sympathized with the French and had democratic sim- 
plicity for their watchword, were inclined to quarrel with what was 
considered the ostentation of President Washington, as well as with the 
vigorous legislative measures of Secretary' Hamilton. The men of this 
party first called themselves Republicans, and afterwards Democrats. 
Samuel Adams, as well as Jefferson, belonged to this party. The party 
on the other side were known as Federalists, and desired that the States 
should all be governed by one central go\'ernment, and that to an extent 
the judicial and executive laws of England should be imitated. Wash- 




A DEMOCRACY. 367 

ington, Hamilton and John Adams were among the foremost Feder- 
alists. Questions of international commerce were of the greatest polit- 
ical interest at the time, and the Federalists associated themselves with 
protection, while Jefferson and his friends headed the free trade move- 
ment. From time to time different influences were brought to bear 
upon each of these parties, and cliques or bands of partisans came up 
which held individual views of some of the questions of the day. The 
Democrats were especially fearful that the national government would 
become too powerful and destroy the rights of the States. They feared 
that it might grow aristocratic and exclusive, as in European nations. 

As early as 1791 a minister had been sent from England. He made 
laws concerning the capture of French merchant vessels, which created 
the strongest indignation among the Democrats. No minister arrived 
in America from France until 1793, and the man sent was Edmund 
Charles Genet, who was received with great enthusiasm by the French 
party in the United States, because he was one of the "Liberators" who 
had beheaded Louis XVI. He was intoxicated with the wild notions 
of the French revolution, and had not the common sense to perceive 
how different was the government which he was now sent to confer 
with. He quarreled with the laws, threatened to head an uprising of 
the people, and at last became so intolerable that the Americans were 
obliged to request that he should be recalled. 

The British continued to wage war upon the French vessels, and 
issued an order directing cruisers to make a prize of any vessel carrying 
the produce of a French colony or transporting supplies to such colony. 
This, of course, was a serious interference with America as well as 
France, and Congress decided to stop all commercial intercourse with 
Great Britain till the western posts still held by the British were sur- 
rendered. Washington was anxious to avert war and in 1794 sent an 
envoy extraordinary to London to negotiate a treaty of amity and com- 
merce. Chief Justice John Jay was the man selected for this enterprise. 
The minister for foreign affairs in England met Jay half way, and 
in a short time a treaty was agreed upon, which went into operation in 
February, 1796. The withdrawal of British troops and garrisons from 
the western posts was agreed upon, as well as free inland navigation and 
trade to both nations upon lakes and rivers, except that the United 
States were excluded from the domain of the Hudson Bay Company. 
There were many other particulars relating to trade by water which 
need not be mentioned. Great Britain was to pay for losses by her 
irregular captures by British cruisers. Citizens of either country were 



368 THE STORY OK AMERICA. 

permitted to hold landed property in the territory of the other, and no 
private property was to be confiscated in case of war. Ships of war 
were to be received in each other's ports. Citizens of either in the 
other's territory were not to be molested, and criminals escaping from 
one country to the other were to be delivered up. When this treaty 
and all of its particulars were known about in America, it aroused the 
warmest controversy. The President and most of his Cabinet were 
fairly well pleased with it, but the Democrats were so incensed against 
it that they proposed to nullify the law by withholding the necessary 
appropriations to carry out the terms of the treaty. Their particular 
argument was that it benefited England at the expense of France, and 
that it was for the benefit of northern trade, and failed to provide for 
the loss of slaves who fled with the British armies at the close of the 
Revolution. The needed appropriations were obtained only after fierce 
debates, only four votes from States south of the Potomac being given 
in its favor. The South was ambitious for ascendancy, and already the 
breach between the two sections became noticeable. 

Washington's second administration was coming to an end. During 
the eight years of his government the nation had gained more confi- 
dence in herself and had increased greatly in size. In 1792, Kentucky 
had come into the union. This region was at first, as has been said 
before, considered a part of Virginia. The Spanish government had, 
at one time, endeavored to induce the Kentuckians to declare themselves 
independent of the Union, and to join Louisiana, which still belonged 
to Spain, but these efforts failed. In 1796, Tennessee became a State. 
This part of the country had been explored much earlier than Ken- 
tucky, and, indeed, may have been visited by De Soto, long before the 
settlement of the Eastern States, It was, however, settled much more 
slowly than Kentucky, and the settlers came chiefly from North Caro- 
lina. It was here that the attempt to establish the State of Franklin 
was tried. This failed, after two or three years of unhealtlu- existence. 
Being so near North Carolina, Kentucky could hardly fail to be a slave 
State. 

At the end of Washington's Administration there were sixteen States 
in the Union. The first census of the nation, which was taken in 1790, 
showed a population of about four millions. Washington refused a third 
election to the presidenc)-. John Adams, of Massachusetts, who had been 
Vice-President, was chosen b}- a small majority over Thomas Jefferson, 
who, as it will be remembered, belonged to the Democratic party. In 
tho.se davs the candidate who received the second number of votes in 



A DEMOCRACY. 369 

the presidential election was made Vice-President, and thus Thomas 
Jefferson was given that position, although he and the chief executive 
differed so widely in politics. From the breaking out of the Revolu- 
tion, President Adams had been one of the most unselfish of the patriots. 
He had assisted in framing the Declaration of Independence, and had 
been one of the Ambassadors to make the treaty with France at the 
close of the war. But notwithstanding these services he was elected 
against the protest of a large part of the nation. Never since has any 
election been conducted with such bitterness of spirit and such public 
revilement. The volcanic government of France had thrown into this 
country many burning brands. The young "philosophers," as they 
termed themselves, could not, and would not, understand the principles 
of this government. They were accomplished in vituperative rhetoric, 
and astonished the moderate-speaking Americans with all sorts of wild 
speeches, which were mistaken for eloquence. So troublesome did they 
become that on June i8, 1798, were passed what were known as the 
alien and sedition laws. By these, naturalization was restricted and the 
President was permitted to send out of the country such aliens as he 
thought dangerous to the United States. He was permitted to give 
license to aliens to remain during his pleasure, and, if he wished, to 
exact bonds for their good behavior. Aliens who had no license might 
be imprisoned, and masters of vessels who brought them might be fined 
for not reporting their arrival. The sedition law made five offences 
penal. These were: "Defaming Congress or the President;" "excit- 
ing the hatred of the people against them;" "stirring up sedition in 
the United States;" "raising unlawful combinations for resisting laws, " 
and '.'aiding foreign nations against the United States." A wild storm 
of dissent greeted these acts, which, indeed, were hardly in keeping 
with the sentiments which America had always voiced, calling herself 
the asylum for the oppressed of all nations. In the legislatures of 
Virginia and Kentucky it was declared that Congress had acted beyond 
its constitutional powers; that the States were not bound *to obey, and 
that each State had the right to determine the question of constitu- 
tionalit}'. With these resolutions, which Vice-President Jefferson 
sanctioned, the Democratic party strengthened its power. The 
Democratic party urged that these laws were such an insult to France, 
which had many distinguished citizens in America, that she could well 
be excused for the diplomatic measures which shg took to annoy 
America. At one time nearl\- one tliousand American vessels were 
detained or captured by tlie French government, and when the American 



370 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

government sent an envoy to France, the Directory ordered him to 
quit the county. The Englisn cruisers were also exceedingly annoying, 
and the commanders had no hesitanc}- in searching for English seamen 
on board of American vessels, under which pretext they frequently 
kidnaped American seamen. 

Adams was constantly hampered b} the peace policy of Jefferson, 
who did not believe that war was right in the new brotherhood which 
had grown out of the French commune. But Adams had determination 
enoueh to insist that another commission should be sent to France. 
When this commission reached that country they were told that they 
would be received by the Directory if they chose to make a handsome 
loan to the French Republic. When the envoys refused to accept such 
humiliating terms, they were ordered out of the country. Congress 
determined to take a hostile attitude, and ordered the standing army to 
be enlarged by twelve regiments. A navy of twenty-four vessels was 
ordered, and merchantmen were allowed to arm themselves against the 
French vessels of war. In theor>', the two nations were at war, but 
there were no engagements between them except among the cruisers. 
Two serious conflicts took place in the West Indies. A heavy French 
privateer and a French frigate were captured and sent into port as prizes. 
But at this time Napoleon came into power, and everj'thing was changed. 
He received a new embassy sent out b>' Adams with great cordiality. 
The French cruisers were told to leave American vessels alone, and 
America changed her aspect to one of friendship. The Federalists, 
who were for war, were thoroughly dissatisfied with peaceable measures. 
The President tried in vain to take a middle course which should please 
both parties, and succeeded in pleasing neither of them. The unpqpular 
sedition law was one of the things most talked of in the election of 
1800, by which the administration of the government fell into the hands 
of the Democrats, to remain there for a quarter of a centur}'. But in 
the meantime, there had been several occurrences of national interest 
outside of this. 

FOR KLRTHER READING: 

Biography — "Life of John Jay." 

History— Carlylf's 'Frencli Revolution," 



CHAPTER LXXI. 



% Haharn Jrutifar. 



THE FRIES INSURRECTION — SELECTION OF THE NATIONAL CAPITAL — 
DEATH OF WASHINGTON — LOUISIANA — 
J AARON BURR. 

the things which awakened national 
anxiety was the Fries insurrection of 1799. 
Discontent with the window tax began to show 
itself in 1798, and, in the spring of the following 
year, a rebellion against it broke out in North- 
ampton county, Pennsylvania. It spread rapidly, 
especially among the Germans. The militia was 
called out, the insurgents soon subdued, and their 
leaders arrested. John Fries was tried for high 
treason and found guilty after two trials, but the 
President pardoned him. Fries afterwards became a 
rich and respectable citizen of Philadelphia. 

In the same year, 1799, the site of the national 
capital was decided upon. Some of the members of 
Congress were very anxious that the place should be New York. This 
the southern members fiercely opposed, and threatened, as they always 
did when in any way annoyed, to secede from the Union. There was 
some thought of placing the national government at Philadelphia for 
ten years, but a desire among many of the members that a permanent 
site should be selected, hindered the carr>dng out of this plan. At 
last it was agreed, ' 'that a district of territory on the river Potomac, at 
some place between the mouths of the eastern branch and Connogoche- 
ague, be, and at the same time is, hereby accepted for the permanent 
site of the government of the United States." To this city was given 
the name of Washington. The plan of the city was laid out by 
Washington himself, and the present stately city shows how excellent 
these plans were. But it was desolate enough when John Adams took 
his wife to the White House, and placed her in charge of that mansion. 




372 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

which in those days was considered by many as far too elaborate an 
edifice for a republican president to live in. The long, unimproved 
avenues, up which few people went, the deep morasses and thick 
groves, were dreary surroundings for the nation's capital and the 
residence of its President. Mrs. Adams complained that so few people 
lived roimd about that they could not even get fire-wood drawn for 
their comfort. The malaria which arose from the swamps was 
dangerous indeed, and the expense of keeping up such a huge building 
was entirely out of proportion to the President's salary. But these 
inconveniences were, of course, soon remedied. There is no question 
but that the site is a beautiful one for a large city. A level plain, 
three miles in length and two miles wide, extended from the banks of 
the Potomac to a range of hills bounding the plain on the east. The 
hill on which the Capitol stands has a noble view. This is the centre 
of the city, and the avenues radiate from it, thus making the city the 
shape of an amphitheatre. The institutions of government, art, 
science and education stand at great distances from each other, and 
have given to the city its name o^ ' 'The City of Magnificent Distances. ' ' 

Before the year 1799 had closed, George Washington was dead. 
The party bitterness which had called down so many criticisms upon 
him vanished suddenly out of sight. The nation recognized how much 
it owed to his wisdom, uprightness, unselfishness and honest pride. 
Congress declared what has since passed into a proverb, that he was 
"First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen,'' 
and Europe recognized the fact that one of the three great men of the 
age had died. These three were Napoleon, Wellington and Washington, 
and of them, Washington can safely be said to be the most disinterested. 

When Thomas Jefferson followed Adams as President of the United 
States, in 1801, his way was made comparatively easy for him, by the 
fact that Napoleon was now at the head of the French nation. The 
confused and complicated foreign conditions were altered. Especially 
(lid this affect the West, where there had been a continual distrust 
l)etween the Americans and the Spaniards in lyouisiana. Upon three 
different occasions the western men had been upon the point of war, by 
the authority and with the sanction of the President. One of the chief 
causes of the quarrels was, that the Spanish commanders at New 
Orleans refused to let the men from the territories unload any of their 
exports at the New Orleans wharves. To end these troubles, Jefferson 
sent Robert Livingstone to Paris, with a proposal to purchase the 
island on which New Orleans stands, and the right of passage to the 



A MODERN LUCIFER. 



?>72> 



sea. The original territor}^ of Louisiana, be it understood, as a French 
province, comprised the valleys of the Mississippi, the Ohio, the 
Missouri and the Illinois. At the close of the French war, in 1763, 
France ceded to Great Britain all that portion of Louisiana lying east 
of the Mississippi and north of the Iberville, about a hundred miles 




WASHINGTON'S GRA\T; AT MOrNT VERNON. 



above Orleans; at the same time France transferred to Spain all the 
rest of her territory on the western side of the Mississippi. In 1800, the 
province was returned to France by Spain. This will account for the 
fact that the officers at Orleans, civil and military, were sometimes 
French and sometimes Spanish. At the time referred to the Intendant 



374 1*HE STORY OF AMERICA. 

of Orleans was a Spaniard, although France was the possessor of the 
province. Robert Livingstone agreed, for the United States, to pay 
sixty million francs to the French nation for the province of Louisiana. 
When Napoleon heard that the negotiation had been completed, he 
said, with great satisfaction, "I have given England a rival." In 
America there was comparative indifference in regard to the purchase. 
The western men were glad to be protected from the petty authority of 
the foreign officers at Orleans. But Robert Livingstone said — and no 
one contradicted him — that the United States had no wish to extend 
their boundaries across the Mississippi. The government took posses- 
sion of the new territory by a public act on the 20th of December, 1803. 
The Vice-President at this time was Aaron Burr, one of the most 
brilliant of American statesmen. When he had held the position of 
Vice-President for three years, he committed the great crime which 
began his downfall. He challenged Secretary' Hamilton to a duel and 
killed him, as both Burr and Hamilton and everyone else knew that he 
would. In the election of 1804, when Jefferson was returned to office, 
Burr was not re-elected, and George Clinton became Vice-President in 
his stead. Burr was as restless and ambitious as ever. He had lost his 
friends, but his thirst for power had only increased. It is hard to tell 
just what motive actuated him when he drew about him a company of 
adventurers, and sailed down the Mississippi river with all the theatrical 
display and assurance of a conqueror. He and his followers were in 
search of fortune, authority, and empire. No crusade of the middle 
ages could have been more romantic or vaguely ambitious in its 
purpose. Many people thought, and still think, that his intention was 
to take Orleans and establish a western empire. Burr was a man of 
very rare magnetism. The man who wished to disbelieve in him must 
first avoid him. He was courtly, elegant, and accomplished, haughty 
with men, and suave with women. He had offended Washington b\- 
his profligacy, and on that account had been removed from Wash- 
ington's military family at the time of the Revolution. As he went 
through the West, he took care to arouse in the pioneers of that country 
the hatred which they had so long felt against the Spaniards of Orleans. 
He begged them to remember Philip Nolan, a young agent of the 
American government, who had gone to Texas to collect horses for the 
Spanish post at Orleans, under a pass from the Governor of Texas. 
Through the treachery of the Spanish government he had been killed 
and all of his companions sent to the mines — mines in which so many 
unfortunates met with a mvsterious end. 



A MODERN LUCIFER. 



375 



Burr visited Blennerhassett's Island, in the Ohio, not far from 
Marietta. Harmon Blennerhassett and his beautiful wife were emi- 
grants from Ireland. They had purchased this exquisite island, built a 
fine house upon it, and lived there in state which was little less than 
princely. Even at that time of open and prodigal hospitality, the}' 
were celebrated for the splendor of their entertainments, and their large 
circle of distinsfuished friends. Mrs. Blennerhassett was a woman of 



<'^wti.£-\Jva?Mja 




DUEL BET»>cEi> BvjRR AND HAMILTON. 



queenly manners and of keen intellect, and the cleverest men and women 
in the nation were glad to know her and to have the entree of her 
house. Through her influence Burr won the co-operation of her 
husband, and Harmon Blennerhassett united himself to the adventurer 
and placed a large part of his fortune at his disposal. In the summer 
of 1806 Burr made the attempt which he had so long threatened. On 
Blennerhassett's Island he collected boats, provisions, arms and ammu- 



376 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

iiition. Here a goodly number of recruits joined him, and as the boats 
sailed down the Ohio and the Mississippi, other confederates were 
picked up by the way. 

Jefferson, for many reasons, had shut his eyes to Burr's actions as 
long as possible, but was now forced into publishing a proclamation 
which denounced the whole scheme, and the United States Marshals of 
Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky made attempts to arrest the expedition, 
which, however, were not successful. As Burr neared Natchez, he had 
thirteen boats and sixt}' men in arms. Here the adventurer's party 
found the militia of the territory in arms to oppose them, and they were 
all taken to Natchez as prisoners. Burr was tried, but pronounced 
guilty of no crime, which showed how thoroughly the western people 
sympathized with him. Disguised as a boatman, he disappeared into 
the wilderness. In the middle of Januar)- he was discovered and 
arrested, and conducted to Richmond, Virginia, to be tried by the 
United States on a charge of high treason. Such, however, were his 
personal attractions still, that when he was placed under guard, it was 
thought necessary that every man in the squad should be taken apart 
and compelled to swear that no interviews should be held with Burr 
upon the road, and that he should not be pennitted to escape. His 
trial lasted three or four weeks, and ended in a verdict of not guilty. 

Burr became an exile in Europe, where he lived in great poverty 
and was shunned as a felon and an outlaw. He was ordered to quit 
England and while in France was kept constantly under the eyes of the 
police. Weary of such existence, he returned to America and resumed 
his profession of the law, but he never won the confidence or the 
friendship of any of his countrymen. His daughter Theodosia alone 
remained loyal to him. She was the wife of Governor Allston, of South 
Carolina. When she heard that Burr was returning from France, she 
set out from Charleston to meet him at New York, but the boat in 
which she sailed was never heard of again. This blow was the bitterest 
which Burr had endured, and the rest of his miserable life was spent 
sorrowfully alone. Blennerhassett died bankrupt and broken-hearted 
on the Isle of Guernsey. A few years later the beautiful Mrs. Blenner- 
hassett died in New York, in the most abject poverty, and was buried 
by some lowly Irish women. 

A fall more profound than that of Burr's has seldom been known. 
He came within one vote of being President of the United States; he 
died almost, if not literally, a beggar, with whom other beggars miglit 
have been ashamed to associate. 



CHAPTER LXXII. 



THE PIRACY OF THE BARBARY STATES — WAR WITH TRIPOLI- 
A \ EXPI.OITS OF OUR NAVAL HEROES — THE 

TRIUMPH OF AMERICA. 



ONSIDERING the comparative weakness and the 
insignificance of the Barbary States, it seems 
strange that for twenty years they should have 
forced the United States to submit to the depreda- 
tions of their corsairs. From its earliest years 
the American government made a mistake in its 
treatment of the semi-barbarous States of northern 
Africa. As early as 1787 a treaty was ratified with 
Morocco, for which Congress paid eighty thousand dol- 
lars. In 1796 another was made with Algiers, by 
which it was agreed to pay forty thousand dollars 
for the release of thirteen Americans held as slaves 
in that State, a large amount of cash besides, and 
an annual tribute of twenty-five thousand dollars as 
the price of exemption from further aggressions. When there chanced 
to be a delay in the first remittance the Dey exacted still further tribute, 
and a ship of war costing about one hundred thousand dollars, was 
sent to him as a present for his daughter. 

The Barbary States subsisted almost entirely by piracy, and it 
was not upon the United States alone that they levied such tribute, 
but upon European nations also, though, of course, England or France 
at any time could easily have humiliated them had they taken the 
trouble to do so. Thousands of Americans were taken captive and 
millions of dollars were spent for ransom. It was a common thing for 
notices to be read in American churches of the captivity of members of the 
church in Tripoli or Algiers, and a sum of money was usually raised for 
the ransom of each. It required four thousand dollars to rescue a captain 
or a passenger. The De}- said that if the people of the United States 




378 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

paid him tribute, they were his slaves, and acting upon this principle, 
he force the frigate George Washington to carry his own tribute to the 
Sultan. This tribute consisted partly of slaves and wild animals, and 
was carried to Constantinople under the flag of the Barbary States. 
This insult was more than even Jefferson, with his dislike for war, could 
endure without a protest. 

In 1 801 Tripoli herself took the initiative and declared war before 
America did so. Jefferson sent four of the six American vessels to the 
Mediterranean. It was his policy to economize in every direction, and 
he believed that a navy was an unnecessary expense. He thought all 
that was necessar>' to protect the country was a few gunboats, capable 
of bearing but one gun each, which were to be kept under shelter 
where they could be easily launched in case of necessity. Many small 
engagements were fought in the Mediterranean which brought no notable 
results. In August, Lieutenant Sterrett, in the Enterprise^ of twelve 
guns and ninety men, fought with a Tripolitan vessel of fourteen guns, 
oflf Malta. The Tripolitan vessel struck after a two-hours' fight, and 
then discharged another broadside when the Americans had left their 
guns and were cheering for their victory. Sterrett ordered his men back 
to the guns and raked the treacherous ship from end to end, not stop- 
ping till the mizzen mast was shot away, the hull riddled, fifty men 
killed and wounded and the colors thrown into the sea by the frantic 
commander. Sterrett then ordered that the enemy should throw all 
their anns and ammunition overboard. The remaining masts were cut 
away, the ship completely dismantled and then left to make its way 
home with a single sail. The Americans did not lose a man. As a 
matter of fact the Tripolitans were not good fighters, and they relied 
upon surprising their victims for their piratical successes. Their 
triumphs had usually been over peaceful merchantmen, whom they ter- 
rorized by their wild manner and show of blood-thirstiness. It became 
frequent for the Americans to destroy their vessels and crews without 
loss to themselves. In July, 1802, the frigate Constellation {ow^xl nine 
gunboats off Tripoli, and drove five of them ashore while the others 
escaped into the harbor. In June of the next year there was a battle 
of still greater odds. A cruiser from Tripoli, carrying twenty-two 
guns, was driven into a bay seven leagues east of Tripoli. Here, with 
nine gunboats about her and a body of cavalry on the beach, the JoJm 
Adams and the Enterprise fought at close range for three-quarters of an 
hour, till the enemy's guns were silenced and her crew leaped over- 
board. The Americans were about to take possession of the boat, 



' DECATUR'S TRIBUNE. 379 

when a boat-load of Tripolitans returned to her and re-opened fire. 
^\\^John Adams replied, and the colors on the Tripolitan vessel were 
taken down. A moment later all her guns were discharged at once and 
she blew up with an explosion which tore her to pieces. 

In 1803, the squadron on the Mediterranean had increased to nine 
ships, which carried in all two hundred and fourteen guns. The 
Philadelphia captured a Moorish cruiser which the Governor of Tangiers 
had authorized to prey upon American commerce. Commodore Preble 
entered the harbor of Tangiers with four of his fleet and asked an 
explanation of the Emperor, who claimed that he was not responsible 
for the act of the Governor, and renewed the treaty with the United 
States. 

The Philadelphia struck upon a reef in the harbor of Tripoli, and 
while she was in this helpless state, was attacked by gunboats, and her 
commander. Captain Bainbridge, was compelled to surrender. The 
Tripolitans took advantage of an unusually high tide to haul her off 
and refit her. The American commodore was, of course, anxious 
to repossess this valuable vessel, or, failing in that, to unfit her for 
service by the Tripolitans, and Stephen Decatur successfully carried 
out a strategy by which this end was reached. He ran into the harbor 
one night in February, 1804, in a small prize vessel, the Intrepid. He 
pretended that the ship was a merchantman which had lost its anchor, 
and gained consent to make fast to the Philadelphia. At a signal his 
men arose from the decks, and poured through the ports and over the 
decks of the frigate. *The barbarians ran shrieking to hide in the hold 
or dash into the sea, and in less than half an hour Decatur had cleared 
the, decks, put combustibles in every part of the ship and set fire to 
them. By the time the Philadelphia was in flames the little vessel of 
Decatur was sailing away out of the harbor without the loss of a man. 

On August 3d Preble entered the harbor of Tripoli with his fleet 
and bombarded the town from his mortar boats. His frigates and 
schooners were out where they could fire upon the batteries. Of the 
gunboats, three, for different reasons, were thrown out of the combat 
and the other three closed with the enemy. One of these, commanded 
by Ivieutenant James Decatur, a brother of Stephen, forced a Tripolitan 
gunboat to yield, but as he was stepping upon deck, was treacherously 
shot through the head by the Tripolitan commander. The boats drifted 
apart and the enemy escaped. Stephen Decatur, in command of 
another boat, was fighting with might and main. He boarded one of 
the enemy's boats, and dividing his men into two parties, charged 



380 THK STORY OF AMERICA. 

around each side of the open hatchway, calling for surrender and bayo- 
neting all who resisted. When he had done his work here thoroughly, 
he closed with the boat where he knew his brother had just been mur- 
dered. He boarded this recklessly, and after a fierce fight, singled out 
the captain who had shot his brother. He was an immense barbarian, 
armed with a sharp pike. He and Decatur closed in a hand-to-hand 
fight. Decatur's sword broke at the hilt, and he parried the thrust of the 
pike with his naked arm. It entered his breast, but he wrenched it out, 
tore the staff away from his enemy, grappled him and rolled him upon 
the deck. The savage Turk struggled to draw his poniard, but Decatur 
grasped his pistol and shot his antagonist, who fell back dying upon the 
deck. In the midst of this, a blow was aimed at Decatur from behind 
by a Tripolitan officer. This would doubtless have killed the distin- 
guished commander had not a young sailor named Reuben James 
stretched out his arm to receive the blow. The life of Decatur was 
saved, but it was at the expense of the right arm of the young sailor. 
There were eighty men in the two boats captured by Decatur, and of 
these fifty-two were killed or wounded. The third boat engaged in the 
struggle was commanded by Lieutenant Tripp, who boarded one of the 
enemy's gunboats and by a rebound of his own boat, was left with only 
ten men on the deck of the enemy. The two commanders fought each 
other — the Tripolitan with a sword, Tripp with a pike. The Ameri- 
can, covered with wounds, was forced to the deck, but with a sudden 
renewal of strength, succeeded in piercing the Turk with his pike. 
The rest of the crew surrendered. At the close of the engagement it 
was found that three of the enemy's boats were sunk and three others 
captured. The Americans had but fourteen killed and wounded. 

A little later than this. Commodore Preble engaged in a conflict 
with some of the enemy's vessels, in which he lost eighteen men. 
Most of these were injured by the explosion of the magazines of one of 
his gunboats. A few days later the bomb ketch Intrepid was fitted up 
as an "infernal," and one hundred barrels of powder and missiles were 
p\it in her hold in tightly planked rooms. In the deck, immediate!}' 
above, were piled one hundred and fifty shells and a great quantity of 
shot and fragments of iron. The plan was for her to be taken by a 
crew of men in among the Tripolitan fleet. The combustibles were to 
be fired and the men make their escape in two boats. There was a thick 
haze over the water and her movements could not be seen by the 
enemy. She had neared the enemy's batteries before they saw her and 
opened fire. Exactly what happened has never been known, but a 



DECATUR'S TRIBUNE. 381 

light was seen to move horizontally along her deck, then to drop out of 
sight, and the next minute there was a frightful explosion, a great 
shaft of fire darting up from the vessel and the blazing rigging and 
canvas were lifted high into the air. The thirteen bodies of the crew 
were found two days later mangled beyond recognition. Little or no 
harm had been done to the enemy by the explosion of the boat. 

In November, 1804, Samuel Barron was made Commodore of the 
Mediterranean squadron, which then consisted of ten vessels, carrying 
two hundred and sixty-four guns. The United States had never before 
assembled so large a squadron. At this time America took advantage 
of a national dispute among the Tripolitans to strengthen herself there. 
The reigning Bashaw of Tripoli had gained the throne by deposing his 
elder brother, and the United States agreed to reinstate the exiled 
prince. They got together a force of adventurers from various nations 
and the American flag was raised upon Derne — the first time that it ever 
floated over any fortification on that side of the Atlantic. The town 
surrendered, and the reigning Bashaw was frightened into making 
peace. The United States no longer paid tribute, the prisoners in the 
hands of the Tripolitans were ransomed, and for some time Barbary 
States ceased to trouble America. But they dealt most unfairly by the 
exiled prince, whom they had promised to return to his throne. Again 
he was exiled, and this time without his wife and children, who were 
kept as hostages by his brother for his peaceful behavior in the future. 
He complained to the United States that they had left him in poverty 
and wretchedness, but they paid no attention to his appeal. They were 
learning lessons in statesmanship ! 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

Biography — McKenzie's "I,ife of Stephen Decatur." 

Poetry— C. H. Calvert's "Reuben James." 



CHAPTER LXXIII. 



ii^ 



\$hrmttm f impKtH^." 



EXPLORATION OF THE NORTHWEST — INTRODUCTION OF THE STEAM- 
BOAT PASSAGE OF A LAW FORBIDDING THE AFRICAN 

SLAVE TRADE — THE JEFFERSONIAN POLICY — 
MARITIME TROUBLES. 




WO great enterprises marked Jefferson's adminis- 
tration. One of these was the invention of the 
steamboat; the other was the exploration of the 
Northwest by Meriwether Lewis and William 
Clarke, whom the President sent ont for that 
pnrpose. The first person to propose the steam- 
boat was Thomas Paine, in 1778, during the Revolu- 
tion; and in 1784, James Ramsey built a vessel, which 
reached a speed of three or four miles an hour against 
the stream, on the Potomac. James Fitch built one, 
which was used on the Delaware, and predicted, to the 
great amusement of ever}'one who heard of it, that 
steamboats would one day cross the Atlantic. But 
these boats were constructed upon a principle which 
made them impracticable, and the first one built upon the present plan 
was launched on the Hudson, by Robert Fulton, in 1807. Three 
years before, Fulton had urged upon Napoleon, in Paris, his plans for 
the steamboat. Napoleon, always progressive, was willing to witness 
the trial of a boat and adopt it for the use of his nation, should it prove 
successful. But the experimental vessel was built too slightly, and the 
boiler and engine proved a greater weight than it could bear. The)- 
broke through it, and sank to the bottom of the Seine. Fulton was 
dismissed in disgrace, and returned to his own countr}'. The Cler- 
mon/, which he launched upon the Hudson, made the trip from New 
York to Albany in thirty-two hours, and back again in thirty. Fulton 
said that the morning he left New York, there were not more than 



'JEFFERSONIAN SIMPLICITY. 



383 



thirty persons in the city who believed that the boat would ever move 
one mile an hour. Indeed, he was laughed at ver>' heartily, and the 
vessel was called "Fulton's Folly." But as it went up the river 
against wind and tide, at the rate of five miles an hour, throwing showers 
of sparks into the air and making a great roar of machinery and paddles, 
the people gave a shout of applause, the first sign of encouragement 
which the devoted inventor had ever received. After this, steamboats 
increased rapidly, and, by the suggestion of many thoughtful men, were 
greatly improved and soon in general use, although it was a long time 
before an ocean steamer was ever built, and it was not until 181 2 that 
-a steamboat navigated the waters of the Ohio. 

It was in 1804 that Lewis and Clarke were given their commissions 
by the President, and started out with a large party to explore the 




THE WHITE HOUSE, WASHINGTON. 



waters of the Missouri river, cross the mountain range and descend to 
the Pacific. For twenty-six hundred miles they pushed their flotilla 
against the current of the Missouri; then, leaving a considerable por- 
tion of the party to guard the boats, they crossed the mountains, 
mounted on horses which they had captured, and discovered the two 
streams which are known as the Lewis and Clarke rivers. They 
followed up these rivers to where they joined with the Columbia, and 
then went on to the sea. Robert Grey, of Salem, Massachusetts, had 
discovered the river Columbia in May, 1792, he being the first man to 
carr}' the American flag around Cape Horn and up the Pacific ocean. 



384 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

He had named the river after his ship, the Columbia Rediviva. Lewis 
and Clarke met upon their journey with numerous Indian tribes who 
liad never before seen white men — man}-, indeed, who had never heard 
of them. This journey was the first ever made by any white man to 
the Pacific, north of the line of Mexico. 

One important event that happened during Jefferson's administra- 
tion was the passage of a law forbidding the African slave trade. It 
will be remembered that this trade had existed ever since 16 19, and it 
was agreed when the constitution was formed that there should be no 
interference with the slave trade until January i, 1808. More than a 
year before that time President Jefferson called the attention of Congress 
to the subject, and congratulated the members upon the fact that they 
would soon be able to forbid the barbarous traffic. The debate which 
followed in Congress was very long and bitter. Although no one was 
in favor of continuing the slave trade, there were wonderfully wide 
differences of opinion as to the best way of putting it down. It was 
argued, too, that if it was right to hold slaves at all, it could not be 
wrong to import them. At length, under the lead of Joshua Ouincy, 
of Massachusetts, and others, a law was passed forbidding the importa- 
tion of slaves from any foreign country into the United States after the 
year 1807. But in spite of the law, slaves were secretly imported for 
many years, until treaties were made with other maritime countries b\- 
which the slave trade was declared to be pirac>-. But it must be 
understood that the slave trade between the different States of the 
American Union was not abolished. The only States free from it were 
those which had incorporated in their charter an act forbidding slavery 
forever within their borders. 

The population of the country had nearly doubled in twenty years. 
At the end of the first ten years of the century the census showed a 
population of seven million two hundred and forty thousand. Wealth 
was increasing in a much greater proportion. After the invention of 
Whitney's cotton gin the exportation of cotton had increased from one 
hundred and eighty-nine thousand pounds exported in 1791, to sixty= 
two million pounds exported in 181 1. Not alone in this, but in every 
direction, increase of prosperity was visible. Ship-building and fisheries 
were sources of great wealth. The State of Ohio was organized and 
admitted into the I'uion in 1802, making the seventeenth State of the 
Union. When its people adopted a constitution, they incorporated in 
it some principles which were new to the world, and which were much 
considered in the formation of other States. To encourage settlement, 



JEFFERSOXIAN SIMPLICITY. 385 

they provided that for four years after any settler purchased land of the 
United States no local taxes should be laid upon it, and Congress met 
this generosity of the people with another gift, which has been made a 
precedent in all similar legislation since that time. This law granted 
to the State one township in each section of their survey for the estab- 
lishment of its schools. This gave to the new States of America 
opportunities for public education which are unequaled in the world. 
Thus it came about that for that State and all which followed it, every 
man who desired could lay claim to a generous portion of land, and 
could have, without expense to himself, a liberal education for all of 
his children. 

Emigration to the Ohio valley became rapid. It no longer seemed 
as far west as it had previously, though people still thought that any 
man who had looked upon Lake ]\Iichigan was a very great traveler 
indeed. There had been but comparatively little interest felt in that 
vast stretch of western territory, but the purchase of Louisiana, which 
more than doubled the area of the national territory, and the tales which 
Lewis and Clarke brought back of the richness of the mysterious north- 
west countr}^, aroused an interest which had never been felt before. In 
the narrative, which the explorers published, they told of finding the 
buffalo so numerous that in one case a herd occupied the whole breadth 
of the river a mile wide, and the party had to stop for an hour to see 
the animals pass by. Trade with the Indians was another spur to 
western excursions, and a New York merchant, John Jacob Astor, 
started a trading post called Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia river. 
But this post was afterwards sold to one of the British fur companies. 

Jefferson's administration was very different in all social respects 
from that of Washington and Adams. From the severity of his life 
and habits we have gained the expression, "Jefifersonian simplicity." 
Washington, upon his inauguration, had driven in a coach and six to 
the capital, dressed in velvet and wearing costly jewels. Jefferson, on a 
like occasion, rode on horseback in a dress which, though careful, was 
certainly not ceremonious. When he dismounted he tied his own horse 
to a post, walked unattended into the Capitol building, and read his 
address. Upon his second election he did not go to the capital at all, 
but set the example of sending a "message" to Congress by a secretary. 
This has been the practice ever since. He did not believe in those 
stately ceremonies which had graced Washington's time, and he 
abolished the weekly levees, only opening his doors on New Year's day 
and the 4th of July, at which time he welcomed any one who cared to see 



386 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

him. He was a strong believer in universal suffrage, and thought that 
all men had a right to vote for their own rulers. The Democratic 
party sustained him in this, but the Federal doubted whether it would 
be safe to place the ballot in the hands of the people and leave govern- 
ment to popular vote. At that time republican government, even to 
the most patriotic, was a thing looked on with distrust. Jefferson was 
very anxious to pay off the indebtedness of the government, and he 
succeeded in paying thirt}-three millions of debt. This was largely 
done by reducing the expense of government, and to this day it is a 
mooted question as to whether this economy was wise or not. 

A great carr\^ing trade had fallen to America because of the European 
war, which placed an embargo upon European courts. Holland, Italy 
and France were largely dependent upon America for sugar, as well as 
coffee. Tobacco and cotton were also largely exported. The extensive 
trade of the West Indies was transacted for the most part through the 
United States. So profitable did the carrying trade become that 
building and maritime commerce increased in a ratio larger than that 
of the population. In commercial rivalry with Great Britain, the new 
nation almost equaled the old in her shipping on the seas. It was not 
strange that the older nation should look on this with jealousy, and out 
of this jealousy there grew a rancour which caused the seizure of many 
an American merchantman. When it was proved that the ship was 
neutral in the court of inquiry, it would be released, but if by chance 
the cargo had been perishable, the ship owner had suffered a severe 
damage for which he could obtain no reprisal. 

Thus it happened that American merchantmen were constantly 
obliged to submit to indignities of one sort and another. Chiefest 
among these was the impressment of her seamen into the English 
service, for it was quite common for English officers, seeking deserters 
from the King's service, to overhaul American vessels and look for the 
deserters, very frequently taking off with them an American-born man. 
This trouble culminated in the proclamations known as the Decrees of 
Berlin and Milan and the Orders in Council. l>y the I)crlin and Milan 
decrees. Napoleon declared the English Islands to be in a state of 
blockade, and claimed, the right to seize all vessels trading with England 
or her dependencies. The English Government replied to these decrees 
by the "Orders in Council" prohibiting all commerce with those parts 
ot the continent of Europe which were under the dominion of France 
or her allies. Practically, this meant all of Europe except Russia, and 
laid American vessels open to seizure where\-er the\- might go. The 



JEFFERSONIAN SIMPLICITY. 387 

United States protested against these blockades, and maintained that the 
blockade of a port must be maintained by a competent force upon the 
spot. This, of course, was the right and dignified position to take, but 
the countr}- had no navy to sustain its policy, and this is where 
Jefferson's economy showed itself to be poor and false. He did not 
even believe in fortifications for harbors, but thought they should be 
protected by cannons on wheels, which could be dragged from place to 
place as they were needed. Thus it was that America was obliged to 
submit to these insults when native pride prompted every man in the 
country to resent them. At length, however, the United States frigate 
Chesapeake was overhauled at sea by an English vessel, which fired 
several broadsides into the American ship. As the Chesapeake had 
gone to sea without any expectation of war, the men were not able to 
fire a gim, and the English officers carried off four deserters which had 
belonged to their crew, but had been previously impressed from an 
American ship. Jefferson forbade iVmerican harbors and waters to all 
vessels of the English navy, and sent a vessel of war with a special 
minister to London to demand satisfaction. The English offered 
reparation, but at the same time issued a proclamation, directing 
commanders to make a demand for all English seamen serving on all 
foreign ships of war, and to report refusal should they meet with it. 
There would doubtless have been war as a result of this, had the 
Americans possessed a navy to fight with. When Congress met in 
1807, it prohibited the departure from American ports of all American 
vessels. No merchandise of any kind was to be exported. The people 
of the United States, and particularly of the South, were foolish enough 
to believe that Europe would suffer severely if it did not receive her 
products, and that they were practically making war against England 
without expense to themselves or danger to their fellow-citizens. But 
at the North, where men were engaged in commerce, ship-masters and 
seamen were naturalh' dissatisfied with a measure which kept them 
shut in port. It was actually a fact that the grass grew in the streets 
and on the piers of the sea-board cities, and as week after week passed, 
the depression of trade grew deeper, until the fallacy of the measure 
became apparent to all, and Jefferson awoke to the realization that the 
States which had been his warmest friends, rebelled against his policy. 
At this time a presidential election came on. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
Travels— Lewis' and Clarke's "Expedition to the Rocky Mountains." 
Fiction — Mrs. Stowe's "Minister's Wooing." 
J. C. Hart's "Mariam Coffin." 



CHAPTER LXXIV. 

Ii[ar jigain. 



ADMINISTRATION OF JAMES MADISON — THE SOUTHERN WAR PARTY 
— DECLARATION OF WAR AND POPULAR PROTEST — 
THE TROUBLES ON THE WESTERN FRON- 
TIER — THE CHICAGO MASSACRE 
— SURRENDER OF 
HULL. 




AMES MADISON, of Virginia, was the next 
President. He had been a member of the conven- 
tion that had framed the Constitution, and had 
been Jefferson's friend upon all occasions. Indeed 
Jefferson may be said to have been his political 
master, and he was anxious that when he left the presiden- 
tial chair, the mantle should fall upon Madison. Madison 
came into power at a troublous time. The foreign rela- 
tions were especially unfortunate, and in the West there 
was danger on the frontier. The Indian chief Tecumseh 
and his brother the "Prophet" had for a long time been 
trying to persuade the western tribes to give up drinking 
whisky and return to the customs of their fathers. 
Tecumseh held also that the treaty made in 1809, by 
William Henr\' Harrison, Governor of the Indiana territory, with several 
of the tribes, ceded to the government lands which belonged to the 
Indians. Harrison invited Tecumseh and his brother to a conference, 
which barely escaped ending in a massacre. The attitude of the 
Indians was so threatening after this that Harrison, with two thousand 
men, ascended the Wabash and built a military post at Terre Haute. 
This was in 181 1. Harrison tried in vain to open friendly relations 
with the "Prophet," but when he found that he could not hope to 
succeed in doing this, he marched against the Indian village and 
encamped within ten miles of it, on the Tippecanoe. On the morning 



WAR AGAIN. 389 

of September 7th his camp was surprised by the savages. The soldiers 
had the presence of mind to put out their camp-fires, that they might 
not furnish so ready a target for the arrows of the enemy, and forming 
in a square, fought the Indians with courage. When the sun arose the 
men who were mounted made a charge which dispersed the enemy, 
Harrison found the Prophet's town deserted the next day and burnt it. 

At this time Henry Clay, of Kentucky, and John Calhoun, of South 
Carolina, both young and ambitious men, stood at the head of the 
southern party who desired to have war with England. New England 
was anxious for a fleet, if such a war was to be undertaken, but the 
southern faction consisted of the slave-holding element, and were not 
willing to unite with New England in any measure, or even to accept 
her advice. The plan was to invade Canada by the enlargement of the 
regular anny and the help of the militia, Madison desired peace, but 
as another election day rapidly neared, he was informed that unless he 
declared for war he would not be renominated as a candidate for the 
presidency. He was a man who had long been overshadowed by others, 
and his ambition now was supreme. He declared war against England 
June 18, 1812. 

A protest against the war was drawn up by Joshua Quincy, of Mas- 
sachusetts, and signed by thirty-eight members of the House. They 
denounced the war as a pretext to give aid to Napoleon against Eng- 
land, and showed how unprepared the nation was, without either army 
or navy, to begin a contest with the strongest nation in the world, and 
they pointed out to their constituents the fact that the declaration of 
war was a party measure and that it was dangerous to the Union in the 
extreme. The people also expressed extreme disapprobation; ministers 
made it the subject of sermons; it occupied the pens of the pamphlet- 
eers and was the subject most discussed in newspapers. Against the 
Federalists, who took this view of the matter, the Democrats, who 
constituted the war party, were greatly incensed. On June 22, 181 2, 
a mob sacked the office of the Federal Republican^ in Baltimore, and 
followed it up by doing great damage to several houses belonging to 
Federalists and to vessels in the harbor. Within a month the editor 
of the Federal Repiihlicnn^ Alexander Hanson, once more issued his 
sheet. The office was again attacked, but Hanson had taken means 
for defending his property and fired upon the mob, killing one and 
wounding several. When the militia was called out, instead of arrest- 
ing the rioters, they arrested Hanson and his party and lodged them in 
jail, where they were again attacked by the mob, who killed, in the 



390 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

most wanton manner, General Lingen, and lamed General Henry Lee 
for life. The ringleaders of the mob were tried, but acquitted. The 
regular army at this time numbered six thousand men. To these were 
added fifty thousand volunteers and one hundred thousand militiamen, 
and Henry Dearborn, of Massachusetts, was given the command. 
General William Hull, the Governor of Michigan, was appointed com- 
mander in the West and was ordered to be in readiness to invade Canada 
in the event of war. His intimate acquaintance with the countr}- made 
him well aware of the danger which was run by taking a warlike atti- 
tude in a territory where there were so man}- Indians. But he was not 
able to impress upon the government all of the needs and conditions, 
and marched from Ohio with about two thousand men, chiefly militia, 
who were especially uncontrollable and insubordinate. When the 
declaration of war reached him, he promptly crossed the Detroit river, a 
few miles below Detroit, for the purpose of taking Fort Maiden. He 
issued a proclamation promising protection to the inhabitants, but 
stating that no quarter would be given to those who were fighting in 
company with the Indians. The news of the declaration of war reached 
the Canadian commanders before it did Hull, and the first movement 
was upon the part of the English who took the fort at Michelimackinac 
by surprise and compelled its surrender. The Indians, who were 
always ambitious to be on the strongest side, immediately joined the 
English. This filled Hull with great apprehensions, and he sent to 
Captain Nathan Heald, who was in command of Fort Dearborn, where 
Chicago now stands, to hasten and join him at Detroit. The Indians 
about Chicago were supposed to be friendly, but their actions were per- 
plexing, and Heald was anxious about the outcome. He promised the 
Indians the property in the fort which he could not take away, and in 
the night he destroyed the firearms, gunpowder and liquor, which was 
the articles for which they were most eager. On the morning of August 
15th, he set out with fifty soldiers and the families of the village. The 
party followed the road by the shore of the lake which was guarded by 
a low range of sand hills, behind which the disappointed Indians were 
crouched. At a point near the southern extremity of what is now the 
Lake Front Park, the Indians rushed upon them with their war cry. 
In the conflict which followed, the women fought with the men, but they 
were no match for the savages, and such as survived after a short but 
deadly struggle surrendered. Of these, all the wounded were scalped, 
for it was known that the British Colonel Proctor, at Maiden, had 
offered a high price for American scalps. The children, twelve of 



WAR AGAIN. 391 

them in all, had been put together in one wagon, in the futile hope that 
the Indians might spare them, but the little ones were all tomahawked 
by one Indian. The massacre was attended by peculiar horrors, which 
are too terrible to bear description. 

At about the same time Hull sent out Thomas B. Van Home to 
guard a supply train. Home's detachment met a force of English and 
Indians at Brownstown, and were defeated with dreadful slaughter. 
Another expedition, under Lieutenant-Colonel James Miller, was sent to 
open communication with the base of supplies at Racine river. These 
were caught in an Indian ambuscade, but after a valiant fight for two 
hours succeeded in routing the savages and returned to their boats. 
They left fifty of their comrades dead behind them, but had the satis- 
faction of knowing that twice that number of Indians had been killed. 
Hull retreated to Detroit, where, with the eight hundred and fifty men 
still left him, he made arrangements for defense. The rest of his men 
had been sent on distant expeditions. On the i6th of August General 
Isaac Brock, the English commander, crossed the Detroit river with over 
two thousand regulars and Indians, and demanded the surrender of the 
city. When Brock demanded surrender he had said that he could not 
restrain his allies, the Indians, from rapine and murder, in case the 
place should be carried by assault. Hull dared not rely upon his 
insubordinate militia for an}- desperate fighting, and as he had learned 
that the officers had formed a conspiracy to take away his command 
from him, he decided to surrender. He knew that if he defended the 
place and his enemies succeeded in defeating him, the fate of the 
women and children would be terrible. Among them was a part of his 
own family, and he had not the courage to run the risk. He 
surrendered without making an effort to fight, and for this was counted 
a traitor, tried by court-martial and condenmed to be shot. But 
Aladison, remembering that he had served through the Revolution with 
devotion, and feeling that the neglect of the government had much to 
do with the case, pardoned him. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Drake's "Life of Tecumseh and the Prophet." 
Fiction — Richardson's "Hardscrabble." 
Richardson's "Waumaugee." 
Mrs. Kenzie's "Wau-bun." 
Poetry— C. H. Colton's 'Tecumseh." 



CHAPTER LXXV. 



"IsttBr iittB |[{t {\t flip/' 

WAR OF l8l2 — THE NIAGARA CAMPAIGN — THE BATTLE OF QUEENS- 
TOWN — NAVAL OPERATIONS — THE SIX TRIUMPHS OF THE 
AMERICANS — AFFAIRS IN THE WEST — THE 
CONFLICT ON THE LAKES — 
■PERRY'S VICTORY. 



.ENERAL STEPHEN VAN RENSSELAER 
had been given command on the Niagara 
frontier, with orders to capture the heights of 
Queenstown. On the morning of October 13, 
181 2, he sent two small columns across the river. 
Some of the men succeeded in landing, but 
several of the boats lost their way. The regulars 
charged up a hill and took position on a plateau, wait- 
ing here for the attack of the eneni)-. The American 
force was worsted and obliged to retreat to the beach. 
They were here reinforced, and ordered to scale the 
heights, which they did, capturing a battery at the top 
of the slope. General Brock had heard of the conflict, 
and had ridden at full speed from Fort Dodge. Upon 
his appearance on the field the English regained courage, and made an 
effort to recover their battery. They drove the Americans to the very 
verge of the precipice. The American commander realized that a 
desperate defence must be made, and he cheered on his men to such a 
fierce assault that the English broke and fled down the slope. General 
Brock made a brave effort to reorganize the English, but fell, mortally 
wounded. Three other oflficers in turn took up his command, but all 
fell, and a retreat was ordered. Lieutenant-colonel Winfield Scott now 
reinforced the Americans, and assumed command on the heights. He 
had expected that the militia would follow him, but the militia refused 
to be taken out of their State, and cautiously remained where the\- were. 
The British were quick to take ad\-antage of Scott's unprotected 




NEVER GIVE UP THE SHIP. 



393 



position, and charged upon him with a heavy force. He repelled them 
twice with the bayonet, and upon the third charge, in which the 
English were reinforced, the Americans were driven to the precipice, 
and let themselves down from ledge to ledge, hanging by bushes and 
roots till they reached the water. The boats were not here to receive 
them, and they were forced to surrender, making the entire American 

loss in this action about one 
thousand. 

The war party were much 
opposed to the use of the 
navy — if the few gunboats 
possessed by the Americans 
could be distinguished by 
that name — but, at length, 
Madison was persuaded to 
order out the vessels, such 
as they were. The 
British nav}'^ at this 
time had more than 
one thousand vessels, 
manned by one hun- 
dred and forty-four 
thousand sailors. The 
United States had 
twenty large war 
vessels and a few 
gunboats, together 
carrying about three 
hundred guns. The 
navy itself was anx- 
ious to take part in the war, 
and one hour after consent 
was given Commodore John 
Rogers put to sea in the 
President^ and gave chase 
to the English frigate Belvi- 
dere^ which escaped with a 
loss of seven men. The Presi- 
dent lost sixteen men by the 
bursting of a gun, and six 







394 I'HE STORY OF AMERICA. 

from the fire of the enemy. Rogers went on across the Atlantic, 
capturing an English privateer and seven merchantmen, and retaking an 
American prize. At the same time an English squadron off New 
York captured several merchantmen and the man-of-war Nautilus. 

Thus began the wars upon the seas. After this there were 
numerous engagements, one of the most notable of which was the 
victor)^ of the frigate Constitution., under Captain Isaac Hull. He fought 
the British frigate Guc7'riere. The vessels opened broadsides upon 
each other at close range, and finally grappled, both parties trying to 
board. But the sea was rough and the musketry fire unceasing, and 
they were obliged to give this up. The Gucrriere lost her mainmast 
and foremast, and the Constitution freed herself, and got into a position 
where she could take her antagonist fore and aft. The Guerriere^ 
therefore, struck. The Americans lost but fourteen men and the 
British seventy-nine, losing their ship into the bargain, for in the 
morning it was found necessary to blow her up, as she was sinking. It 
was said that the victory to the Americans came through superior gun 
practice, which was not a little astonishing to the English, who 
had especially prided themselves upon proficiency in that direction. 
The Americans had placed sights upon their guns and could, therefore, 
fire with great accuracy. The English, as yet, had not adopted this 
plan. When Captain Hull landed in Boston he was met with a public 
welcome. Triumphal arches had been raised, the streets decorated, 
and he and his officers were entertained at a public dinner. In New 
York and Philadelphia he met with a like recognition of his services, 
and Congress voted him a gold medal, and his crew fifty thousand 
dollars. At the beginning of autumn, in the conflict between the 
Wasp., of America, and the Frolic, of England, the vessels grappled and 
the Americans sprang on the deck of the Frolic and compelled surrender. 
The Frolic carried a large crew, of which only twenty were unhurt. A 
few weeks later. Commodore Stephen Decatur captured a packet with 
a large amount of specie, and afterwards fell in with the frigate Mace- 
donia with which he fought two hours. The Macedonia struck, and 
owned to a loss of one hundred and four men. Decatur lost but twelve. 
Captain Bainbridge fell in with the British frigate /^z'^, off the coast of 
South America, and after a fight of two hours the Jaz'a struck, having 
lost every spar and one hundred and twenty men. Bainbridge' s frigate, 
the Constitution, lost but thirty-four men. It was this engagement 
which gave to the Constitution the title of "Old Ironsides." England 
was amazed, that in the six encounters at sea the enemy should have 



"never give up the ship." 395 

been successful in every one. The war party of America was almost 
amazed at the success of the navy, since it had steadily objected to its 
use. But the capture of three hundred British merchantmen which 
were now kept in American ports, and the presence of the three 
thousand prisoners belonging to them, was a matter which could not be 
belittled. 

Early in the winter of 1812, a new army, numbering about ten 
thousand, drawn from the Western States, was put under command of 
William Henry Harrison, for the purpose of recovering the territory 
lost by Hull's surrender of Detroit. An advance detachment at that 
time occupying Monroe, Michigan, was attacked on January 2 2d by 
fifteen hundred British and Indians, under Colonel Henry Proctor. The 
Americans fought behind fences, but these were poor shields against the 
British artillery. General Winchester was captured, and from what he 
saw in the enemy's lines, feared that wholesale slaughter would ensue 
unless the Americans surrendered. He found means to send word to 
that effect, and the Americans surrendered, under Proctor's promise of 
protection against the Indians. This promise was broken, and the Indians 
not only killed all the prisoners, but tortured them cruelly. Harrison 
now hastened to build Fort Meigs, at the rapids of the Maumee river, 
and Proctor besieged this work in April, threatening, as usual, that if 
the place was carried by assault the men would be massacred. The 
Americans succeeded in spiking the enemy's batteries, and Proctor was 
forced to raise the siege. A little later, Tecumseh, the Indian chief, 
joined Proctor, and their force, five thousand strong, attacked Fort 
Stevenson, on the Sandusky, where Fremont now stands. The garrison 
numbered but one hundred and sixty men and possessed but one gun. 
When Major George Croghan received the summons to surrender or be 
massacred, he replied that when the fort was taken there would be no 
men left to kill. After bombarding the fort without effect for a long 
time from their gunboats and with the field artillery, the British 
advanced to the attack on two sides at the same moment. Croghan placed 
his single gun where it would sweep the ditch. He loaded it to the 
muzzle, and waited till the attacking party leaped over the ditch. In 
the discharge it swept down nearly every man. A second column met 
with a like fate and the party retreated. 

The attention of the nation was turned more particularly for a time 
to the lakes, where both parties were struggling hard for ascendancy. 
Isaac Chauncey was the American commodore, and Sir James Yeo the 
British admiral. Both countries had expended much money and pains 



396 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

upon the fitting out of fleets, and here it was felt the war would be 
largely decided. In April, 1813, Commodore Chauncey's fleet carried 
General Dearborn and fifteen hundred men from Sackett's Harbor, and 
landed them two miles west of what is now Toronto. At that time it 
was called York, and was the capital of Upper Canada. The expedi- 
tion had for its purpose the capture of a large ship then building 
at the docks, the capture of which Chauncey thought necessan,- 
to his success. But the ship was afloat before Chauncey and 
and his fleet reached York, and nothing came of the movement. When 
the Americans had landed, under protection of a well-anned schooner, 
the body of English and Indians, who had withstood them, fell back 
behind some fortifications. They were closely followed by the Amer- 
icans, who ordered that a halt should be made till the artiller}- had time 
to come up. While they were waiting, a magazine near the works, 
containing one hundred barrels of powder, exploded, killing or wound- 
ing two hundred Americans. But they rallied and pressed forward into 
the town, and during the four days which they remained, fired the 
government buildings. In the legislative chamber they found a human 
scalp hanging as a trophy, or a reminder of their Indian allies, and this 
was sent, with the speaker's mace and a British standard, to Washing- 
ton. Chauncey now returned to Sackett's Harbor, landing Dearborn 
and his force near the mouth of the Niagara river. Here, a month 
later, Chauncey rejoined them and Fort George was taken. At this time 
Yeo, the English admiral, with General Prevost, was on his way to 
Sackett's Harbor, which had been left almost without defense at the 
time that Dearborn was in York. The English attacked the town in 
front, while their Indian allies fought at the rear. The American 
militia fled after the first fire, but the regulars and volunteers fought 
until they were forced to take refuge in the log barracks. Their com- 
mander ordered them to pretend to march for the boats, and General 
Prevost, fearing that his escape would be cut off", ordered a retreat 
leaving two hundred and sixty dead and wounded behind him. The 
loss among the Americans was as severe in proportion to their numbers, 
and their stores, which were worth half a million dollars, were unfortu- 
nately burned. Several other mishaps overtook the Americans on the 
Niagara frontier, and closed the campaign for the summer with as 
melancholy a record of defeat as could well be imagined. 

On Lake Erie, however, there was an exploit which was most 
successful for the Americans. Here a squadron was commanded by 
Captain Oliver Hazard Perry. By August he was afloat with ten vessels, 



"never give up the ship." 397 

carrying fifty-five guns, in vigorous search of the British squadron 
of six vessels, which bore sixty-five guns and was commanded 
by Captain Barclay, These forces did not meet till the 
middle of September. The English squadron drew up in line of 
battle, but the American line was straggling, and one of the American 
vessels was soon reduced to a wreck and obliged to drop out of action. 
Perry left her, took a small boat, and in the midst of a fierce storm of 
bullets reached the Niagara. He sailed this vessel straight through 
the British lines, delivering broadsides on both sides as he went. Then 
getting across the bows of the English vessels he raked two or three of 
them while his smaller craft poured in grape and canister. Perry told 
the outcome of the day's work in his brief despatch to General 
Harrison: "We have met the enemy and they are ours — two ships, 
two brigs, one schooner and one sloop." 

Harrison was transported by Perr}''s fleet to the Canadian shore of 
the Detroit river and besieged Fort Maiden. The English general set 
fire to the place and retreated, and Harrison pursued him by land while 
Perry carried his baggage and supplies by water. On the 5th of 
October Proctor turned about and faced his pursuers, choosing a posi- 
tion where he could plant his guns in a highway, and be protected on 
each side by marshes. Tecumseh was with Proctor, and the Indians 
and British were arrayed for the defence of the highway. Harrison 
placed his mounted infantry in the front of the ranks, and faced the 
Indians who were in the marsh. The horsemen moved slowly when the 
bugle gave them the signal, but increased their pace till they dashed 
with terrible force through the enemy, killing, capturing or scattering 
the English regulars. Proctor was pursued by a dozen well-mounted 
men, but escaped. Tecumseh was killed and the Indians fled. The 
Americans had regained the territory of Michigan, and Harrison and 
his troops returned to Buffalo. This decisive conflict was known as the 
battle of the Thames. Hull, and then Dearborn, had then been retired 
with their military reputations shattered, and General Wilkinson was 
now put in charge of the northern forces, which consisted of Harrison's 
force at Buffalo, the force at Fort George, that at Sackett's Harbor, and 
the right wing of the Vermont frontier, under Wade Hampton, these 
numbering altogether about twelve thousand men. Wilkinson was in 
poor health, and was much more interested in a whisky bottle than in a 
campaign, and therefore left his command largely to inferior officers. 
It was the plan for him to move down the St. Lawrence with a part of 
the men, while Hampton was to advance overland, make a junction 



398 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

with him and the whole army was to move upon Montreal. To make 
the road easy, Chaiincey drove Yeo into port and kept him there. But 
notwithstanding this, the Americans met with many disasters. The 
weather was bad, the boats poor, and some were driven ashore, while 
others went to the bottom, causing the delay of the whole flotilla until 
they could be replaced. At Williamsburg, they encountered troops to the 
number of seventeen hundred. A sharp battle followed, from which 
both parties retired in good order with a loss which was similar upon 
both sides. The other general, Wade Hampton, was as inefficient as 
Wilkinson, and he sent word that he could not make the junction 
agreed upon. Upon receiving this news Wilkinson willingh- went 
into winter quarters. Hampton, with five thousand men, had been 
successfully checked by the English Lieutenant-Colonel de Dalaberry, 
who had a force of four or five himdred. In December General Drum- 
mond appeared between Lakes Ontario and Erie, and the Americans 
holding Fort George, which had been so expensively gained the summer 
before, fled at his approach, taking refuge in Fort Niagara and burning 
Newark as they went. The enemy followed them and captured Fort 
Niagara without meeting with any respectable resistance. They killed 
eighty of the garrison, including the men in the hospital. A number 
of towns were destroyed, and all the farming region laid waste, many 
of the inhabitants being put to death. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
Fiction — Kirklaiid's "Zurv." 

W. C. Iron's "The Double Hero." 
Poetry — J. G. Percival's "Perry's Victorj- on Lake Erie." 

Oliver W. Holmes' "Old Ironsides." 

Levi Bishop's "Battle of the River Raisin." 



CHAPTER LXXVI. 



THE WAR WITH THE CREEKS — ^JACKSON'S CAMPAIGN — AFFAIRS ON 
THE SEA-BOARD — "YANKEE" STRATEGY — 
THE TREATY OF PEACE. ^ 



'EFORE Wilkinson had been removed from the 
southern to the northern departments, he had taken 
Mobile away from the Spaniards. This he did 
without resistance. It was done in accordance with 
the claim that the eastern boundary' of Louisiana 
was the Perdido river. Spain denied this, and 
resented the seizure of Mobile. The powerful tribe 
of Creek Indians were given supplies of arms and am- 
munition at Pensacola and incited against the Americans. 
Tecumseh, who had since met with a warrior's death, 
had been sent south to lash the Creeks by his resentful 
eloquence into a still more warlike frame of mind. 
Both the English and the Spaniards urged them on, 
and early in 1813 they began their hostilities. In the 
first encounter they were defeated, but in the second one, at Fort 
Mimms, a thousand of them, under the command of a noted half-breed, 
William Weathersford, besieged a stockade in which the inhabitants of 
the neighborhood had taken refuge. The men and women fought 
together here for many hours, and large numbers of the Indians were 
killed, but the buildings were finally set on fire, and the Indians 
massacred the people as usual, not even sparing the children. Only 
twelve of the garrison escaped. The rest were murdered with horrible 
tortures. 

The Southwestern States were prompt to punish these atrocities. 
The legislature of Tennessee appropriated three hundred thousand 
dollars for the campaign, and placed Andrew Jackson at the head of 
five thousand men. These men were composed largely of Western 




4CX) THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

pioneers, well mounted, used to forest fighting, and capable of great 
endurance. Among them were Sam Houston and Davy Crockett, men 
which every American schoolboy counts among his heroes. Jackson 
built Fort Deposit, on the Tennessee, as a depot for supplies, and 
foraged the country thoroughly, burning every Indian village in his 
way. The Indians were first met at the little village which occupied 
the site of the present Jacksonville. The American detachment con- 
sisted of one thousand mounted men, who gave the Indians no quarter, 
killing every one of them, and taking the squaws and children 
prisoners. In a later encounter they killed three hundred out of one 
thousand of the enemy. At this time a force of about fifteen hundred 
came from Georgia, while from the West came another force, so that 
the Creeks had enemies upon three sides of them. The Western men, 
under General F. S. Claiborne, discovered a town of refuge on the 
Alabama. This was built on holy ground, and no path led to it. In it 
were the women, children and the prophets. When Claiborne broke in 
upon their religious rites, he found captives bound to stakes ready to be 
burned. Claiborne sacked and burned the town. By this time winter 
had closed in, and the short enlistments of the men were expiring, and 
therefore the operations for the year were closed. 

Along the sea-board, America had met with continued disasters 
through the year of 1813. Early in the spring a blockade had been 
declared from Montauk Point, on the eastern extremity of Long Island, 
to the mouth of the Mississippi. It was true that the British squadron 
was not sufficient to guard such a vast extent of coast, but it was well 
able to seriously interfere with commerce, and harass the people of the 
towns. Admiral Cockburn was especially dreaded for his cruelties. 
Along the shores of Delaware, ]\Iaryland, Virginia and North Carolina, 
he waged an unsoldierly warfare upon the quiet people of the villages 
and farms. His brutal sailors, half intoxicated, were allowed to over- 
run the country, robbing, burning, and committing every outrage which 
their ungoverned viciousness prompted. Cockburn' s men enticed away 
slaves and sold them in the West Indies. But their destruction and 
appropriation of property were the least of their offences. 

In the course of the year Congress authorized the building of four 
ships of the line, six frigates, six sloops of war, and as many vessels as 
might be necessary for operation on the hikes. Besides these, a large 
number of privateers were commissioned, and did some excellent 
service. One of the most notable of the engagements between privateers 
was between the Shannon and the Chesapeake. This happened before 



''bi,ue lights." 401 

Perry's victory on Lake Erie, and, indeed, the vessel which Perry 
fought in was the Lawrence^ named after the gallant commander of the 
Chesapeake^ and on Perry's flag were the last words of Captain 
Lawrence, "Don't give up the ship." The fight between the Shainion 
and the Chesapeake took place in Boston Bay, and the American 
vessel was so injured that she became unmanageable. The enemy- 
swarmed upon the decks and poured a terrible fire down the hatchways, 
and after an engagement of fifteen minutes the ship was theirs, and 
though the fight had been so brief, the Chesapeake had forty-eight 
killed and nearly one hundred wounded, and the Shannon twenty-three 
killed and over fifty wounded. Another naval engagement with a 
pathetic ending was that of the brig Entejprisc^ and the English brig 
Boxer. The Boxer surrendered after a fight of three-quarters of an 
hour, off the coast of Maine. Both captains were killed and buried side 
by side in Portland. There is an exciting little story told of the fishing 
smack Yankee^ which had forty well-armed men concealed below, but 
showed on deck only three men, a calf, a sheep, and a goose. After 
sailing out of New York she met with a British sloop of war, the Eagley 
which was in want of provisions, and as the Yankees drew along side, 
her forty men sprang on board the sloop of war, killed a number of the 
crew, drove the rest below, and took possession, sailing up the bay with 
their prize. Thousands cheered them from the batter}', where they 
were celebrating the anniversary of American independence. Perhaps 
it is better to leave untold histories like that of the American brig 
Argus^ which captured an English merchantman laden with wine, to 
which the crew were allowed to help themselves till they were all 
drunk. They then set the prize on fire, and by this brilliant light 
they were seen by the English brig Palatine^ which bore down upon 
the Argns and captured her. One disaster which greatly disheartened 
the people was the defeat of Decatur, whose squadron was driven into 
New London and kept there by the larger force of the blockaders, so 
that none of these ships got to sea again while the war lasted. The 
Connecticut militia gathered upon the shores in such numbers that it 
was impossible for the English to capture them. But Decatur and his 
officers fretted under the idleness and made more than one attempt to 
break through the line of the enemy's ships. When they failed in 
these attempts they complained that there were traitors on shore, who 
warned the ships outside of their movements by burning blue lights. 
This the people of Connecticut stoutly denied, but as they belonged to 
the party which was opposed to the war, they were not believed, 



402 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

although their militia stood staunchly by Decatur's fleet week in and 
week out. It is possible, and even probable, that upon occasions these 
blue lights were burned by some traitor on shore, but it was the grossest 
injustice to accuse the loyal people of Connecticut of this. It was a 
time, however, of great political hatred, and the Federalists were always 
afterward called the "Blue Lights." 

As the year 1814 opened, the outlook for American success was 
dark. Napoleon's power had been broken, and an act was passed to 
increase the regular army to sixt) -six thousand men. It was evident 
that if England chose, she could overrun the country with veteran 
troops. But negotiations for peace now began. It was decided that 
these should be conducted at Gottenburg. John Quincy Adams, James 
A. Bayard, Henry Clay, Jonathan Russell and Albert Gallatin were 
appointed commissioners and instructed to insist that in the future 
there should be no search or impressment by English naval commanders 
upon American vessels, but to offer to exclude British seamen from 
American vessels and to surrender deserters. This was practically 
yielding up the cause for which the war had been fought, for had this 
arrangement been made at the outset there could have been little excuse 
for war. While these matters were under slow consideration, prepara- 
tions for the campaign of the coming year, 1S14, were continued. 

FOR FURTHER READING; 

Biography— Abbott's "Life and Adventures of Davy Crockett." 
"Life of Satu Houston." 



CHAPTER LXXVII. 

JACKSON'S CAMPAIGN AMONG THE CREEKS — DISCOURAGEMENTS ON 
THE NORTHERN FRONTIER — THE BATTLE OF LUNDY'S 
LANE — THE WAR ON THE SEA-COAST FOR 1814 — 
THE CAPTURE AND DESTRUCTION OF THE 
CITY OF WASHINGTON — VICISSITUDES 
AT THE SOUTH — THE BAT- 
TLE OF NEW OR- 




LEANS. 



./ 



^ sNDREW JACKSON had been made Major-Gen- 
•p^l? eral, and commanded nine hundred raw recruits. 
^^1 His late army had gone home at the end of their 
'^^'''' time of service, in spite of his prayers. With 
these inexperienced men he marched into the 
country of the Creeks, fought two battles, and 
lost a hundred soldiers. Shortly after this, his army 
was increased to five thousand men, and he renewed 
hostilities. At Horseshoe Bend, in the Tallapoosa, 
there is a peninsula of one hundred acres, with a neck 
not more than five hundred feet wide. Upon this 
peninsula one thousand Creek warriors encamped, and 
threw up a rude breastwork across the neck. Jackson 
marched with nearly three thousand men against this 
defence, sending a detachment of mounted men and 
friendly Indians to the enemy's rear. After cannonading without 
effect upon the breastwork for two hours, Jackson saw smoke arising in 
the rear and knew that his detachment had reached the Indian village 
and fired it. He then ordered his men to storm the works, and they 
fought hand-to-hand with their enemies through the loop-holes for a 
while, then leaped the defence, and charged with the bayonet. It was 
seldom that an Indian asked for quarter. His idea of warfare was to 



404 THE STORY OK AMERICA. 

kill or be killed, and he did not complain when luck was against him. 
The Americans shot down the Indians as they ran to hide themselves 
in the thickets, or to swim the stream, and thus for a time the Creeks 
were checked. 

Not so encouraging was the reopening of affairs in the North. 
Wilkinson's militaiy career was ended in the beginning of the year by 
two military disasters. The Secretary of War still wished to invade 
Canada by the river St. Lawrence, and to do this, proposed to take 
Kingston. To conceal this movement and to make sure that no eneni}- 
was left in the rear, Major-General Brown was ordered to commence 
operations on the peninsula between Erie and Ontario. On July 2d 
he compelled the surrender of Fort Erie. On the 5th he was unex- 
pectedly forced into a battle, in which the British retreated, and the 
Indians, disgusted at their defeat, all deserted them. Brown felt it to 
be safe, after this success, to move upon Kingston along the lake shore, 
and asked for the co-operation of Chauncey's fleet, assuring that admiral 
that Canada could now be taken without difficulty. But this co-opera- 
tion Chauncey did not give him, and Brown was forced to turn back, 
upon learning that the English general, Riall, with large reinforce- 
ments, was at Queenstown. Winfield Scott, now a brigadier-general, 
was sent forward with a corps of observation, and as his troops came 
into an open space looking upon Lundy's Lane, nearly opposite Niagara 
Falls, they were met by the entire British force drawn up in line of 
battle. Scott at once sent detachments to turn the wing of the enemy 
and succeeded in capturing a large number of prisoners. General 
Brown was soon on the ground with reinforcements, and he saw that 
the great strength of the British lay in their centers, where they had 
seven guns planted upon a low hill. Colonel James Miller was ordered 
to take this battery, and modestly answering, "I will try, sir," he put 
his men in motion and ordered them to move cautiously through the 
dusk — for it was after sunset. The men crept along the ground up to 
a fence, and when their commander whispered the order, they shot 
every man at the guns, and rushed forward in the face of a sharp fire 
and captured them. The British made two determined efforts to retake 
the battery but failed, and as the darkness deepened they retired. The 
battle of Lundy's Lane was not a decisive one, but it was one of the 
hardest ever fought. Of the two thousand Americans engaged, seven 
hundred and forty-three were killed or wounded, and of the four thou- 
sand British, eight hundred and seventy-eight. General Winfield Scott 
was so severely wounded that he could not serve during the rest of the 



A COUNTRY WITHOUT A CAPITAL. 



405 




war, and General Brown for some time was obliged to leave the com- 
mand in other hands. In the meantime General Edward Gaines was 
given command of the x\merican troops, and conducted a defense 



406 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

against a midnight assault, on August loth, with great success, the 
English losing nearly a thousand men. 

The Americans were besieged in Fort Erie and the English brought 
their parallels so close that showers of hot shot were thrown into the 
fort. One of these disabled General Gaines, and Brown, though still 
far from well, assumed command. On December lytli, a sudden sortie 
with two thousand men was made by the Americans, overwhelming the 
besiegers, dismounting the guns and destroying the works. In this the 
Americans lost five hundred men and the British nine hundred. The 
siesfc was then abandoned, and in October the Americans destroyed 
Fort Erie and returned to their own shore. 

In spite of these successes the Americans had gained but little. Two 
thousand of their men had been buried on Canadian soil. It had been 
proved that the Americans had not quite forgotten how to fight, but 
nothing had been gained which was of pennanent value to the country. 
As the summer closed, both parties stood on the defensive on their own 
side of the border. Sir George Prevost made an attempt to invade 
New York as far as Crown Point, on the old path over which so many 
warlike expeditions had moved, but this attempt was unsuccessful, and 
Prevost abandoned his plan. 

On the sea-coast the war had been one signal disaster. The block- 
ading squadron was increased and the American vessels kept well in 
shore, while depredations upon the coast were frequent and vicious. 
The valley of the Penobscot was seized as a conquered province, being 
invaded by General Pilkington, who met with no defense except that 
which a half-armed and thoroughly frightened militia could give. 

In August, the English fleet appeared off" vStonington, Connecticut, 
and gave the inhabitants one hour to remove the women and children. 
The little village was then bombarded steadily for three days, and into 
it was thrown fifty tons of iron and solid shot, bombshells, etc. There 
were only about a score of men to defend the town, and these mounted 
three old guns and handled them so well that they kept the enemy from 
landing, and inflicted a loss upon them of seventy men killed or 
wounded. Seven of the defendants were wounded, but none killed. 

Shortly after this, occurred that episode of which the Americans are 
perhaps more ashamed than of anything else in their national history. 
In August of 1 814 General Ross, with thirty-five hundred men, the 
finest regiments of Wellington's army, appeared in the Chesapeake and 
was here reinforced by one thousand marines from Cockburn's block- 
ading squadron. The whole force was landed about forty miles below 



A COUNTRY WITHOUT A CAPITAL. 407 

Washington. President Madison and the Senate had been warned again 
and again of the purpose of Ross' expedition, but the war party refused 
to believe or listen, and when the English appeared upon the coast, but 
slight defense was possible. Brigadier-General William Winder had 
been placed in command of five hundred regulars, a few weeks before, 
with the assurance that two thousand militia would respond to his 
orders. But no effort was made to put this little force in condition to 
take the field. When Ross made his undisputed arrival, he could hardly 
believe that the way had thus been left open to him. He moved on 
cautiously, and at length met Winder, whose militia, at the firing of 
the first English rockets, fled to Washington. The President and his 
Cabinet had their personal safety more at heart than any other matter, 
and set the example b\- getting away with as much haste as possible. 
The only honest defense which the British met with was from a small 
band of seamen and marines, commanded by Commodore Barney and 
Captain Miller. When these men, six hundred in number, were 
obliged to retreat, they left six hundred dead Englishmen behind them 
to show that every man had done his duty. As the British entered 
Washington the Americans set fire to their own navy yard, forgetting 
that the English could do no worse should they take it. The invaders 
burned every public office in Washington except the patent office, 
which was spared because of the assurance that it contained nothing 
but private property and models of the arts, which were of general use to 
the world. Admiral Cockburn, leaping into the speaker's chair as his 
followers entered the halls of Congress, cried out: "Shall this harbor 
of Yankee democracy be burned? All for it say, aye." The public 
libraries were also burned, and the next night the invaders crept quietly 
awa}', expecting to be severely punished for their depredations — a sus- 
picion which was a compliment to the Americans not deserved by them. 
The British were almost as bewildered as gratified by a success so 
extraordinary, and they hastened to send an expedition against Balti- 
more. The citizens of that city were warned in time, and put up 
fortifications, calling out all of the available troops to repel the invasion. 
When Ross landed at the head of his advance, he was picked off" by a 
sharpshooter and carried to his boat, where he died in a few minutes. 
The three thousand volunteers, under General John Sticker, withstood 
the enemy for three hours, and then fell back upon the intrenchments. 
The following day they were reinforced, and the British quietly retreated 
in the night. In the meanwhile, sixteen vessels moved up the bay and 
opened fire upon the defences of Baltimore. For twenty-four hours 



4o8 



THE STORY OF AMERICA, 



the}- poured a continuous stream of rockets and shells into the forts, 
and at night sent a strong force to attack them in the rear. But this 
was discovered and dispersed by a fire of red-hot shot, and the fleet 
retired. There were four notable battles on the ocean during the 
year, in three of which the Americans were successful. These only 
showed, by contrast, how disgraceful was the fight upon shore. The 
effort to make a conquest of Canada was as far from accomplishment as 
at the beginning. The Federalists were not slow to point out the weak- 













W'% 



■^^^pi=?-,-^^ 




THE KORT AT PKNSACOLA. 



ness of the Administration, and to dilate upon the great injury which 
it was doing to the country, and to the commercial States in particular. 
The cost of the war was but a small item compared with the loss which 
the people of New England sustained from the crushing of their trade. 
There were serious thoughts of forming a Northern Confederacy, not 
for the purpose of disbanding the I'^nion, but that it might not be 
tyrannized over by a faction whose policy was so disastrous. It was 
questioned by great statesmen whether the Union had not been a failure, 



A COUNTRY WITHOUT A CAPITAL. 409 

and a convention, having representatives from all the Northern States, 
met at Hartford, for the purpose of considering the new Constitution, 
or of making amendments to the old one which should prevent such 
evils as they were then suffering from. Massachusetts was particularly 
anxious that the legislative powers of the people should rest upon a 
different basis, and that the number of representatives should depend 
upon the population, but nothing definite was done at the convention. 

In the meantime, the British force had taken possession of the Span- 
ish town of Pensacola, in Florida, and used it as a station to fit out 
expeditions against Mobile and New Orleans. Here they equipped the 
Indians for war, and attempted to drill them, Jackson received fresh 
troops from Tennessee and Kentucky, and marched southward to meet 
this new invasion. The British attacked Fort Bowyer, at Mobile, in 
September, but were repulsed. They blew up the fort at Pensacola in 
November, when they heard that Jackson was approaching, and left 
him to take undisputed possession of the town. 

Jackson now hastened to New Orleans and made preparations to 
defend that port, the loss of which would give the English the com- 
mand of the Mississippi. Jackson was in his element, for he was never 
better pleased than when encountering difficulties. He made up his 
lack of men by enrolling convicts, appealing to the free negroes and 
calling out the militia. He proclaimed martial law through the city, 
built intrenchments, and considered every possibility and exigency 
which might arise. The British landed twenty-four hundred men nine 
miles below the city, and Jackson went down to meet them with about 
two thousand men. It was on the 23d of December, when the days 
were short, and night was closing before he reached the enemy, so that 
the attack had to be made after dark. The armies became intermingled 
and the fights were largely hand-to-hand. When the Americans with- 
drew to their fortifications, after two hours of fighting, each side had 
lost more than two hundred men. Almost immediately after the action 
the British troops received large reinforcements, and among them was 
General Sir Edward Pakenham, brother-in-law to the Duke of Well- 
ington, who was to take the chief command. The situation of his 
armies seemed to him unfortunate. They were on a narrow strip of 
low land, bounded on one side by a broad river and on the other by a 
morass. The enemy in front, of unknown numbers, were behind forti- 
fications. Two American vessels in the river harassed the camp day 
and night, and the weather was causing sickness among the men. 
Pakenham brought some guns across the peninsula, destroyed one 



4IO THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

American vessel with hot-shot and drove the other up stream. He then 
erected bastions of hogsheads of sugar, behind which he mounted thirty 
guns, and opened the year 1815 with this warlike action. Jackson, on 
his part, used cotton bales for his bastion, and before these were knocked 
out of place and set on fire, had constructed good earthworks a mile and 
a half in the rear. Both sides were reinforced during the week that 
followed, and both generals laid excellent plans of procedure. 

On the 8th of January the English opened an attack, advancing in 
two columns, and preceded by regiments bearing ladders and fascines. 
Between them marched a thousand Highlanders, to support an attack 
on both wings. But Jackson's men were those of the West and South, 
who, as riflemen, have never been excelled, and their aim was unerring. 
The artillery was handled with precision, and in the first discharge from 
the thirty-two-pounder, the entire van of one of the British columns 
was swept away. In attempting to reform his men, Pakenham was 
killed, two other generals were seriously wounded, and the commander 
of the Highland regiment was shot dead. In twenty -five minutes* the 
action was over, and the British found that they had lost seven hundred 
killed, fourteen hundred wounded and five hundred prisoners, while the 
American loss was but seventeen. Such a brilliant success as this might 
well have raised the confidence of the American people, but at this 
time news was received that peace had been concluded at Ghent, on the 
24th of December, two weeks before the battle of New Orleans. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
Biography — Parton's "Life of Jackson." 
Fiction — Glerg's "The Subaltern." 

J. n. Ingrahain's "I.afitte." 
G. W. Cable's "Grandissimes." 
G. W. Cable's "Old Creole Days." 
G. C. Eggleston's "Captain Dain." 
Poetry— Francis Scott Key's "The Star-SpangleJ Banner." 



CHAPTER LXXVIII. 

THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING — WAR WITH ALGIERS — FINANCIAL CON- 
DITION OF THE COUNTRY — THE FIRST SEMI- 
NOLE WAR THE MISSOURI 

COMPROMISE. 



iHEN the Treaty of Peace was at last ratified, there 
came what is known as ' 'the era of good feeling. ' ' 
For a time the political parties were glad to forget 
their quarrels and rejoice together over the restora- 
tion of peace. Everywhere there were celebra- 
tions, public dinners, congratulatory speeches and 
wine-drinking. In the general rejoicing, the 
people did not much concern themselves that the treaty 
was not a good one, and that it left matters practically 
where they were before the war. Those who thought 
about the matter doubtless consoled themselves that, 
however weak the treaty was, England would not soon 
again impose upon American vessels as she had done 
previously, and that she would stand in wholesome fear 
of the resistance with which any presumptuous step on 
her part would be met. 

There was one other question of foreign difficulty to be settled, and 
that was with Algiers. The Dey of Algiers was dissatisfied with the 
measure of the usual tribute. He declared war against the United 
States and renewed his depredations upon American commerce. Early 
in the spring of 1815, Decatur, his old enemy, was sent with a squadron 
of nine vessels to the Mediterranean. In June, he captured an Algerian 
frigate and a brig of twenty-two guns. He then anchored his whole 
squadron in the harbor of Algiers and demanded immediate negotiations 
for a treaty. To conduct these negotiations the Dey came on board 
Decatur's ship and begged that there might be a continuation of tribute, 
if only of a little powder, for form's sake. The Dey knew that should 




412 ^THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

the United States refuse to pay tribute, all of the nations would follow 
the example, and the Barbary- States would no longer receive a large por- 
tion of their wealth from these sources. "If you insist on receiving 
powder as tribute," said Decatur, "you must expect to receive balls 
with it." The Dey yielded, and a treaty was concluded with Algiers, 
followed by others with Tunis and Tripoli. Thus the United States, 
the youngest of all the nations, was the first to put an end to that sur- 
prising submission to the piratical Barbar\' States. 

As might be expected, the country was in the worst of financial 
conditions, and the immediate measures of the Secretary of the Treasur}- 
and of Congress were for the purpose of bettering commercial affairs. 
A new national bank was chartered, with a capital of thirty-five million 
dollars, and duties were raised on imports to such an extent that they 
amounted almost to prohibition. The Democrats, or the Southern 
element, were in favor of this policy which protected their great staple, 
cotton, but the men of New England opposed it, since it ruined the 
carrying trade, which was their great source of profit, and which the 
war had deprived them of for the last four years. The free-trade party 
was led by Daniel Webster, of Massachusetts, and the tariff party by 
John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina. All the flourishing sea-ports of 
New England, from Portsmouth to Long Island Sound, received at this 
time a blow from which they never recovered. 

As another presidential election neared, the power of the Federal 
party continued to wane until it was quite annihilated. James Monroe, 
of Virginia, was made President in 1817. He had fought in the Revo- 
lutionary War, and had been Secretary of State under Madison. 
Though an amiable man, he had but little strength of character, and 
was not well calculated to manage the afiairs of State. He was not 
well established, when he was called upon to consider some serious 
matters on the southern frontier. For a short time it looked as if 
America might once more be plunged in war, and this time with Spain, 
as well as England. Florida, which was still a Spanish province, was 
the home of the Seminole Indians, and these savages had for many 
years offered protection to the slaves who sought it. It will be remem- 
bered that many years before there had been an insurrection among the 
slaves of South Carolina and Georgia, and that they had fled into 
F'lorida. There had been three generations of people since that time, 
but the slave-holders of the States mentioned could never forget that 
within a short distance of them were hundreds of people who were 
their property. When, therefore, there was any war with the Indians 



A TRANSIENT AMIABILITY. 413 

of Florida, it was always practically a slave hunt, and both the Span- 
iards and Seminoles were quick to aid in repulsing such movement 

When the British army left Florida, in 181 4, a colonel by the name 
of Nichols remained in Florida, and having much sympathy for the 
Indians, he built a fort for them on the Appalachicola, near its mouth. 
This he supplied with large quantities of arms and ammunition, and 
returned to England, leaving the fort in the hands of the Seminoles. 
It soon passed from their hands into those of the negro refugees. Gen- 
eral Edmund P. Gaines, who had charge of the southern frontier, con- 
tinually complai'ned of this "negro fort," and united with Georgia in 
urging the Federal government to war. There was no question but 
that the fort was an excellent place of refuge for any overburdened 
slaves who found a chance to escape from the lash of the overseer, and 
as the slave-holders believed that the Federal government was framed 
for the purpose of protecting their interests, and that their chief duties 
lay in that direction, it is not strange that the Southern States should 
assume the government to be willing to take up arms for the purpose 
of recovering these unfortunates. 

In July, 1816, a detachment of Americans was sent to attack this 
fort, and some red-hot shot entered the magazine, where nearly eight 
hundred barrels of gunpowder were stored. The fort was laid in ruins 
instantly, and two hundred and seventy of the three hundred and thirty- 
four inmates killed outright, most of the others dying from their 
wounds soon after. The inmates were negroes and Indians, of both 
sexes and all ages. An Indian chief and the negro commander were 
among those who were not killed by the explosion, and these were 
tortured to death after the Indian manner. It is not surprising that in 
the year that followed, the settlers were murdered, and the settlements 
robbed. The wonder is rather that the retaliations were not more 
numerous. The Seminole chiefs warned the American soldiers not to 
cross the Flint river, saying that the land beyond was theirs, and that 
they should protect it by every means in their power. General Gaines 
did not regard this warning, and marched upon the Seminole village, 
burning it to the ground. The Seminoles took to the forest and 
waited. A few days later a boat passed down the river carrying forty 
soldiers, with some women and children. The Indians, concealed upon 
the bank, killed every one of these except four men, who swam to the 
shore, and one woman, who was kept in captivity by a chief 

The command in this border war was now given to Andrew Jack- 
son. Jackson paid no attention to the orders given him to call upon 



414 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

the militia of the border States through their governments, but raised a 
volunteer force among his old companions-in-arms in Tennessee — all of 
them magnificent fighters, and men who worshiped Andrew Jackson as 
the hero of his country. On the site of the negro fort he built and gar- 
risoned another, which he called Fort Gadsden. From here he advanced 
toward the Bay of St. Marks, driving away without difficulty the few Sem- 
inoles who tried to intercept him. The Spanish Governor of the fort at 
St. Marks could not make a defense, and Jackson marched in on the 7th 
of April, hauled down the Spanish flag and raised the American in its 
place. A few days before, an American armed vessel had sailed up the 
bay, ran up English colors, and thus enticed on board two well-known 
Seminole chiefs who were supposed to have been the leaders in the 
recent massacre. They were brought on shore and hung by Jackson's 
orders. A strong garrison was left at St. Marks and the march was 
resumed. Jackson wished to march upon and surprise the Indian 
town Suwannee, which was said to be a place of resort for negro 
refugees. Jackson was too late, however, for when he reached the vil- 
lage he found it deserted. 

At about this time occurred one of those incidents which showed 
Andrew Jackson's inflexible and iron nature. At St. Marks he had 
taken prisoner a Scotchman named Alexander Arbuthnot, who was a 
trader with the Indians, He had a depot of goods near Suwannee, and 
from his writing to his son to remove the goods to a place of safety, the 
Indians were warned of the advance of the Americans. On this account 
Jackson chose to look upon him as a spy. At Suwannee, Robert C. 
Ambrister, an officer of the English army, who had been suspended 
from duty for a year on account of fighting a duel, got into the Ameri- 
can camp by mistake. It had been his intention to join the Indians. 
He was therefore kept as a prisoner of war. Roth these men were sen- 
tenced to death. Arbuthnot was hanged and Ambrister shot. These 
excutions were against all law and entirely without justification. Upon 
Jackson's previous campaign he had caused six militiamen to be shot, 
because they claimed that their terms of enlistment had expired, and 
that they should return to their homes. The men were honest in their 
claim, and were entirely innocent of any intention to offend. 

When Jackson reached Fort Gadsden upon his return, he was met 
with a protest against this invasion of Spanish territory from the Gov- 
ernment of Pensacola. He promptly turned back, reoccupied Pensa- 
cola and took the fort to which the Governor had fled. It is said that 
he afterwards regretted that he did not hang the Governor. Jackson 



THE SECOND ADAMS. * 415 

tried afterwards to shift the responsibility of all these aggressions upon 
the shoulders of Monroe, but it is not rightly known where the greater 
part of the blame should be put. It was not Andrew Jackson's habit 
to ask permission of any one to do what he considered his duty. Nego- 
tiations for a treaty with Spain were being conducted in Washington, 
and in February, 181 9, they were concluded. The Floridas were ceded 
to the United States for the sum of five million dollars. 

The breach between the Southern and the Northern States was 
widening. The value of slave labor rose as the new lands on the lower 
Mississippi opened fresh fields for cultivation. Slave-raising had 
become a science, and it was concluded by the economists that it was 
better to use up a gang of negroes in seven years and supply their 
places by new purchases, than to attempt to prolong the lives of the 
gang in hand by moderate labor. The invention of the cotton gin had 
also greatly increased the value of slaves, for two hundred pounds of 
fibre could be freed of seeds in a single day by the gin. As it was dif- 
ficult to overstock the market with this produce, thus it became almost 
impossible to overstock the plantations with slaves. There was nothing 
the slave-holders so much dreaded as legislative interference, and it was 
their constant ambition to keep a man in the presidential chair who 
should look after the interests of this wicked trafiic, and see to it that 
the Northern States did not get in the ascendancy. To do this it was 
necessary that they should insist that as many slave States were included 
in the Union as free States. Thus, after Indiana, came Mississippi, in 
1 81 7, a free State and a slave State. After Illinois, 181 8, came Ala- 
bama, 1819, a free State and a slave State. In March, 1818, the citizens 
of Missouri asked permission of Congress to form a State constitution, 
and to be admitted into the Union. Missouri lay beyond that district 
where slavery had existed up to this time, and Congress, and indeed 
the whole country, was divided upon the question as to whether Mis- 
souri should be a slave State or not. In admitting the other slave States 
to the Union, Congress had not instituted slavery, but only allowed it to 
exist. Should the government conclude to permit slavery in Missouri, 
it would be giving official encouragement to it. When a formal bill 
was entered in February, 181 9, for the admission of Missouri, a New 
York Congressman proposed, as a condition of admission, that from that 
moment there should be no personal servitude within the State except 
of those already held as slaves, and that these should be freed within a 
short time. The South met this proposition with defiance and the 
haughtiest indignation. The North was threatened with terrible pun- 



41 6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

ishment for her interference with the States of the South. Even as the 
question was being discussed a slave-coffle passed the Capitol, the men 
being bound together with chains and the women and children walking 
behind under the lash of a slave-driver. But this degrading sight serv^ed 
no other purpose than to point the paragraph of an eloquent Senator. 
For many weeks the debate went on passionately, and finally, when 
Maine asked for admission into the Union, the Southern men protested 
that she could only be admitted on the condition that ]\Iissouri was 
allowed to come in as a slave State. Had not some of the Northern 
men gone over to the side of the South, slavery might have been kept 
out of Missouri, but at last the Southern faction grew so strong that it 
became necessar}' to accept a compromise, which is known as the Mis- 
souri Compromise, in which slavery was prohibited in all that portion 
of the Louisiana purchase lying north of 35°, 30', excepting Missouri. 
This compromise was only carried by much trickery, and what little 
good there was in the compromise was taken out of it by the President 
and the Cabinet. When the bill was brought to the President he asked 
two questions. First, whether Congress had a constitutional right to 
prohibit slavery in a territory. The Cabinet were all agreed that Con- 
gress had such a right. Second, he wished to know if the section 
prohibiting slavery "forever," referred only to the territorial condition 
or whether it also applied when the Territory became a State. With 
the exception of John Quincy Adams, the Cabinet claimed that this 
referred only to the Territor>', and that when any of these Territories 
became States, they could admit slaves, should they choose to do so. 
In the next session of Congress a bill was passed preventing free negroes 
and mulattoes from settling in Missouri under any pretext whatever. 
In short, negroes in Missouri were to have no rights — the\- were not 
under any circumstances citizens. Thus did the Federal government 
make itself responsible for slavery, and aided in its establishment where 
it had not previously existed. From this time forward the fight between 
slavery and freedom was an open one. 

l"OR imRTIIICR READING: 

Fiction — Leba Smith's "Major Jack Dooming." 
Hall's "I.eRends of the West." 
W. G. Sininis' "Guy Rivers." 
W. G. Simms' "Richard Hurdis." 




FALL OF TABLIv ROCK. 



CHAPTER LXXIX 



* 



Hm$. 



MONROE'S ADMINISTRATION — ELECTION TO THE PRESIDENCY OF JOHN 

QUINCY ADAMS — THE ASSERTION OF STATE SUPREMACY IN 

GEORGIA — TARIFF DISPUTES — ANDREW JACKSON 

ELECTED PRESIDENT — THE FINANCIAL 

CRISIS OF 1837. 



HE historv' of a nation is not confined to its wars 
and its disasters. These, though they may seri- 
ously disturb, cannot uproot the home life in 
which the seed of the growth and evolution lies. 
During IMonroe's administration the civilization 
of America was becoming more profound. Educa- 
tion, particularly in the Northern and Western States, 
was spreading rapidly. The power of church doctrine 
was decreasing and in its place was springing up a 
Christianity in which there was more kindliness than 
dogma. Already that private enterprise, which at a 
later day made America the most convenient country in 
the world, began to show itself. DeWitt Clinton dug 
the Erie canal, three hundred and sixty-three miles long, 
connecting Lake Erie and all the upper lakes with the 
tide-waters of the Atlantic. Noah himself, when he built his ark, could 
hardly have met with more ridicule than did Clinton when he began 
this great task. The first spadeful of earth was turned on the 4th of 
July, 1 81 7, and in October, 1825, the largest canal in the world was 
opened for traffic. It ran through a rich and fertile wilderness — a 
wilderness soon broken by the building up of many towns upon the 
banks of the canal. Its original cost was seven million six hundred 
thousand dollars. 

Steamboats were gradually coming into favor. In 181 8 the steamer 
Walk-i7i-the-ivaier ran regularly to Detroit from the eastern extremity 
of Eake Erie. In 181 9 the first passage on a steamboat was made across 




4X8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

the Atlantic. This was by the ship Savannah^ owned and commanded 
by Moses Rogers, of New London, Connecticut. He went from New 
York to Savannah, from Savannah to Liverpool, and then up the 
Baltic to St. Petersburg. He used both sails and wheels, depending 
on his sails when the wind was favorable. When the ship appeared off 
the coast of Ireland, she was supposed to be on fire, and a cruiser was 
sent out from Cork to offer her relief Congress was too busy atttending 
to political affairs to give any recognition to enterprise so remarkable, 
and the attempt was not repeated for twenty years. 

At the close of Monroe's second term of office, many candidates 
for the presidential chair were before the people. The Federal party 
had been crushed out and the Democratic party was in power. New 
ideas were giving birth to new parties, but at this time it was hardly 
apparent what form the}' would take. Throughout the North and the 
West, however, there was a firm determination to put an end to 
Virginia supremacy. For twenty-four years the office of President had 
been held by men from Virginia, and the affairs of the entire nation had 
been made subservient to those of the South. Monroe was almost lost 
sight of in the midst of the controversies and agitations of the time. 
His long and honorable service for his countr}- had not won for him the 
consideration and deference which it should. His yielding disposition 
had made him seem contemptible, although he was a man of calm 
judgment and imdeniable patriotism. In his last message to Congress 
he fortunately gave voice to what is known as the Monroe Doctrine, 
and to this, more than anything else, is he indebted for the preservation 
of his name from oblivion. This message expressed great interest in 
the young South American States, some of which the King of Spain 
was attempting to force into a colonial condition. President Monroe 
declared that should any European power attempt to interfere in 
American affairs or to deprive any country on the Western continent of 
its liberty, it would be considered as a manifestation of an unfriendly 
disposition towards the United States. Monroe also said that hence- 
forth the American continents were not to be considered as subjects for 
colonization in the future by any European power, meaning that 
hereafter no nation of the Eastern continent should have a right to 
usurp any territory upon either of the Americas, and that hereafter the 
unsettled country within the acknowledged boundaries of American 
States was exclusively their own, and not subject to foreign occupation. 

In the presidential election which followed, John Quincy Adams, 
of Massachusetts, was elected. All the previous Presidents had taken 



THE SECOND ADAMS. 419 

part in the revolutionary war or in the founding of the government, 
but John Quincy Adams belonged to the generation of younger men, 
and was but nine years old when his father had signed the Declaration 
of Independence. The opposition to Adams drew together the party 
composed mainly of Southern slave-holders with a considerable Northern 
alliance. To the support of the Administration rallied all those who 
were opposed to a slave-holding Democratic party, and which became 
known as National Republicans, although they did not assume this 
name definitely until near the close of Adams' administration. So 
intensely did the Southerners fear that slavery might be interfered with, 
that the Senators from the slave-holding States would not even allow 
Congress to send representatives to a Congress of the South American 
States, which was to meet at Panama with the purpose of defining their 
relations to each other and to foreign States, political and commercial, 
and the expediency of a league among themselves. They objected to 
this for the reason that the emancipation of slaves might be, and 
probably would be, one of the subjects discussed, and they all agreed 
that it was a subject which could not with safety be talked about. 
They constantly preached the doctrine of State rights, and seized every 
opportunity to uphold that theor}^ in the Senate. Georgia was the first 
of the States to give a practical illustration of what the South meant by 
State rights. When she became a State, one condition of the cession of 
her western territory to the Federal Government was, that the title to 
the Indian lands should be acquired by the United States and transferred 
to her. The Government had been unable to redeem this promise, 
because the Creeks and the Cherokees would not part with their lands, 
and had sworn to put to death any chief who should prove such a 
renegade to his race as to make a treaty with the United States of 
which they should be a part. However, in 1825, certain chiefs 
concluded a treaty conveying these lands to the United States, and the 
Creeks kept their word and put them to death. The State of Georgia 
then ordered a survey of the territory occupied by the Indians, but it 
was found that should they do this, it would involve the country in an 
Indian war. Besides, the treaty which had been ratified by the Senate 
and the President did not put the Creeks out of possession until Septem- 
ber I, 1826, and it still lacked over a year of the time of its fulfillment. 
The President, therefore, refused to consent to the survey, but the 
Governor of Georgia insisted upon the right of the State to do as it saw 
fit in such matters, and pretended to see in the decision of the President 
a secret hostility to slavery. The Indians appealed to Adams and the 



420 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

whole case was presented to Congress, but nothing was done. The 
Administration consented to be quiet, and Georgia was allowed to do 
as she pleased. Encouraged b)- her success at this time, Georgia soon 
asserted her power in other matters and the States of the South rejoiced 
in her success. 

There had been a time when the protective policy was identified 
with the Southern States, but as they saw the North constantly 
increasing in riches and prosperity, they concluded that the North must 
be reaping more than her share of the benefits which arose from the 
protection of commercial industries, and they therefore decided to 
advocate free trade measures. The North had been forced to take up 
industries by the very protective policy which the South had advocated, 
and now wished to abide by the principles of protection. Hereafter, 
the question of tariff became a sectional one, the North advocating 
protection and the South free trade. As a matter of fact, the North, 
with its free labor, would have succeeded under any international 
arrangement, while the South, with its reluctant and groveling slave 
labor, could hope for nothing but a succession of economical problems. 

In 1828 a comprehensive tariff bill was passed, in which the 
protection on wool, iron, lead, hemp, distilled spirits and various other 
articles of general importance was increased. This was made the chief 
opposition to the Northern Administration. 

During the closing years of Adams' administration occurred the 
Black Hawk War. In 1830 a treaty was made with the tribes of Sacs 
and Foxes by which their lands in Illinois was ceded to the United 
States. But they were unwilling to leave their land, and the Governor 
of Illinois called out a militia force to compel them to cross the Missis- 
sippi. Black Hawk, a proud and patriotic chief of the Sacs, then about 
sixty years old, gathered a small force of warriors and returned in 
March, 1832. In a short time the pioneers were harassed by having 
their farms laid waste and their houses burned. Not infrequently the 
massacre of the farmers followed. The Governor of Illinois called for 
volunteers, and a force of about twenty-four hundred men was soon 
marching after Black Hawk's band of one thousand. The chief fled, 
but was overtaken and defeated on the Wisconsin river. The survivors 
retreated northward and were again overtaken near Bad-axe river, on the 
left bank of the Mississippi. Here many of the Indians were shot in 
the water while trying to swim the stream, and others were killed on a 
little island where they sought refuge. Fifty prisoners were taken, 
most of whom were squaws and children. Black Hawk, Keokuk and 



THE SECOND ADAMS. 421 

several other chiefs surrendered, and were taken to Washington to make 
a sad acknowledgment of their subjection. 

In the presidential election of 1828 Andrew Jackson was elected by 
a very large majority, and when the inaugural ceremonies were 
performed in the following March, a larger crowd gathered in Wash- 
ington from all parts of the country than had ever been seen there on a 
like occasion. Calhoun, who had been Vice-President under Adams, 
had been again chosen to act with Jackson. Jackson began his adminis- 
tration by removing from office all who had not been his partisans — an 
example which has been followed by every President since, except 
Cleveland. Washington made nine removals from office, John Adams 
nine, Jefferson thirty-nine, Madison five, Monroe nine, John Quincy 
Adams two, and Jackson not less than two thousand. In one week he 
vetoed more bills sent him by Congress than all his predecessors in office 
had vetoed in forty years. He was a man of such peculiar and inflexible 
character that his administration was invested with great interest. No 
one could be indifferent to him or to what he advised. No public man 
in America had warmer friends or more bitter enemies, and if one class 
exaggerated his virtues, the other doubtless exaggerated his faults. He 
allowed his Cabinet to disperse and Washington to divide itself into 
social cliques, because of his staunch defence of the wife of the Secretary 
of War, about whom unfortunate reports were circulated. He insisted 
that this woman should be recognized in society, and forced the ladies 
of Washington to open their doors to her. He defended her with that 
zeal which distinguished him in everything that he took up; not alone 
because her husband was a personal friend, nor entirely because it was 
his natural instinct to defend a woman, however undeserving, but because 
his own wife had been especially unfortunate, and had met with 
criticisms which saddened her life. If he could keep another from 
suffering in a similar manner what his wife had, he wished to do so. 
He had been married to his own wife nearly forty years, when the 
discovery was made that the divorce which she had obtained from a 
former husband was not legal. As soon as this was discovered, proper 
legal steps were taken and Jackson and his wife were married again. 
This was tortured by Jackson's enemies into a scandal, by which 
Jackson, one of the purest of men, suffered no less than his wife. After 
that wife was dead, it was not strange that Jackson should try to vindicate 
her case by defending that of another woman. He did this in his usual 
imperious and overbearing way. Washington was filled with scandals; 
the Cabinet was broken up; his niece, who presided over the White 



422 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

House, was sent away because she would not receive the woman he was 
defending, and he made himself absurd with wild fits of rage in public 
when he saw some slight put upon her. These matters, small as they 
were in themselves, came to have a strong political bearing, and for the 
first time American politics were smirched with personal scandals. 

One of the political measures which distinguished Jackson's 
administration was his hostility to the United States Bank. He 
suggested that a national bank, founded upon the credit and 
revenues of the government, might be devised, which would be 
constitutional and beneficial to the finances of the country. The 
United States Bank made a stubborn resistance, and gave all the reasons 
for its existence which its advocates could invent for it. The charter 
had yet five years to run, but application was made for a new one. The 
President's adherents in the House demanded an investigation, and a 
committee was appointed in which the majority approved its manage- 
ment. After a long discussion, a bill to renew the charter passed both 
Houses, but was vetoed by the President. As the two-thirds majority 
necessary to pass it over his veto was lacking, the measure fell through. 
]\Ieanwhile, the time arrived for a new election. Clay was Jackson's 
competitor, and was supported by the high tariff party. The anti- 
Masons came into existence at this period, and they also supported Clay. 
This party originated in 1826. William Morgan, a ^lason, had written 
a book which pretended to expose the secrets of the order. He was 
supposed to have been killed by the direction of his official superiors, 
and a party was formed which opposed the Masonic and all other secret 
orders. 

Jackson had a growing popularity. The revenue during his admin- 
istration had far exceeded the expenditure, and the national debt was 
being rapidly paid off. One reason for this was that the Democrats at 
that time were opposed to the expenditure of government money for 
internal imj^rovements, and that Jackson had vetoed many bills favor- 
ing such measures. The West India trade had long been a matter of 
dispute between England and the United States. This was brought to 
a rather unsatisfactory adjustment before the close of Jackson's first 
administration and the trade was opened to Americans, but the condi- 
tions were not dignified. About this time the countr}- was called upon 
to consider a peculiar problem. Its revenue was much larger than it 
could find any use for, and the question was, How should it be re- 
duced? The first answer which would occur to any one was that the 
tarifl should be reduced, but protection was a pet which could not be 



THE SECOND ADAMS. 423 

driven from the arms of the American people. Mr. Clay provided a 
bill for the reduction of duties upon foreign products, except where 
they came in conflict with articles of domestic manufacture. This 
caused much discontent. In South Carolina, especially, it was thought 
that the duties imposed were altogether too favorable to Northern 
manufactures, and a convention was finally held in that State to plan 
secession from the Union. It was decided that no duty should be paid 
in South Carolina after a certain day, and that if the United States 
attempted to force such payment, then South Carolina should organize 
a separate government. Mr. Calhoun, the Vice-President of the United 
States, was to be placed at the head, and medals were made with the 
inscription, "John C. Calhoun, first President of the Southern Con- 
federacy," and circulated among the people. The men devoted them- 
selves everywhere to military drilling, and the women made palmetto 
cockades and prepared ensigns of State sovereignty. The palmetto 
was the symbol chosen for the new nation. This was called "nullifica- 
tion," a word which had been invented many years before by some 
ingenious Southern Senators. 

But though President Jackson was the hero of the Southern States,, 
he was too good a patriot to encourage them in such measures as these. 
He issued a proclamation announcing that "to say any State may at 
pleasure secede from the Union, is to say that the United States are not 
a nation." He denied the right of either nullification or secession, 
pointed out the absurdity of State sovereignty, and told the people of 
South Carolina that if they resisted the law, they would be put down 
by force of arms. He hastened to send troops to the forts of South 
Carolina, as well as vessels of war, placing all under the command of 
General Winfield Scott. But as usual, compromises were proposed in 
the Senate and accepted which arranged matters as South Carolina 
desired, and the North meekly did as she was bidden. 

Another matter which caused much debate in Congress was the 
public lands. The sale of these was a great source of revenue, and as 
the price upon them was higher than that which most emigrants were 
willing to pay, emigration tended toward the extreme West, beyond the 
surveyed frontier, to settle where no immediate payment was required. 
The emigration from Europe straight to the Western States was very 
large. In 1837, it was nearly eighty thousand, but the next year it 
was lower. This was on account of the great financial crisis of 1837, 
caused largely by the existence of State banks which put afloat a larger 
amount of paper currency than they could carry. The only banks in 



424 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

the country which did not suspend at this time were those few in which 
the government deposited its specie, and, indeed, some of these were 
involved in the ruin. Though the people were in this weakened finan- 
cial condition, the treasury of the government continued to have a sur- 
plus, and it was decided that all surplus over five million dollars should 
be divided among the States as a loan only to be recalled at the discre- 
tion of Congress. Such a thing had never been heard of before, and it 
was difficult to tell how to conduct it. The manner in which it was 
distributed added to the irritation which already existed in the govern- 
ment, for the people of the North felt that far more than their rightful 
share had been given to the people of the South. Twenty-eight million 
dollars was thus given to the States, part of which spent it in public 
improvements, the rest dividing it among private citizens. But all of 
the financial affairs of the nation were conducted in a slipshod way, 
and the close of the year 1837 found States, as well as people, burdened 
with debt beyond their ability to pay. It was a period, however, when 
recuperation was easy. Steam was coming into general use. The first 
railway in America for passengers was chartered by the Maryland legisla- 
ture in March, 1827. This was the Baltimore and Ohio. Not until 1829, 
however, did Peter Cooper, of New York, build a locomotive. By 1840, 
there were nearly three thousand miles of railway in the United States. 
Manufactories were rapidly increasing, and the woolen and cotton goods 
made were improving in quality. It was in 1840 that Sidney Morse, 
of New York, obtained a patent for his electric telegraph. The census 
taken in 1830, under Jackson's administration, showed a population of 
nearly thirteen millions. Two new States were added to the Union, 
Arkansas, in 1836, and Michigan, in 1837. ]\Iichigan came in as a 
free State, but Arkansas was dedicated to slavery. 

FOR FURTHER RKADING: 

History — "Black Hawk's Life of Himself." 

Moncrieflf's "Men of the Backwoods." 
Fiction — G. C. Eggleston's "The Big Brother." 
Poetry— H. R. Schoolcraft's "Talladega." 



CHAPTER LXXX. 

%tt\m nnh %vn\\. 



THE LITERARY HISTORY OF THE LAST FIFTY YEARS — THE 

ABOLITIONISTS. 



^T may be wise at this period to renew the literary 
history of the country. Philip Freneau, a Hugue- 
not by descent and a New Yorker by birth, was 
the first American poet to attain eminence, 
although the Revolution started into life a multi- 
tude of ballad-writers. Philip Freneau graduated at 
the college of New Jersey in 1771, where he was a class- 
mate of James Madison. He published four volumes, 
which were read in England as well as America. 
His political burlesques were popular, but are not so well 
remembered as his more serious poems. Joel Barlow 
was the first American to make an attempt at a national 
epic. This he termed "Columbiad." It is stately, but 
without grace. Dr. James McClurg, of Virginia, wrote 
many romantic verses of the sort usually penned in ladies' albums at 
that time. 

Charles Brockden Brown was the first American novelist. The 
history of this country had been too severe to encourage fiction. In the 
South, there was a comparative indifference to letters, and in the 
North, literature took, for the most part, the form of a religious 
controversy. Brown's novels were gloomy, and it is for this reason 
that they are not better known. David Ramsay prepared some valuable 
books, and Jeremy Belknap wrote a history of New Hampshire, and a 
series of biographies. The first standard book written by a New 
England woman is the "History of New England," by Hannah Adams. 
Dr. Abel Holmes' "Annals of America" is a very valuable book. 
Chief Justice Marshall wrote a "Life of Washington," and William 
Wirt a biography of Patrick Henry. John Ledyard was the first 




426 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

American traveler to write a history of his exploits. Dr. Benjamin 
Rush wrote voluminously about medicine. Alexander Wilson was the 
author of some works on ornithology-; Samuel Mitchell was the first 
man in this country to write on chemistry; Benjamin Barton was the 
earliest American authority on botany, and Benjamin Thompson wrote 
on physics. 

The theological writers of the last part of the eighteenth centur}' 
and the first part of the nineteenth were very numerous. Among them 
were William Ellery Channing, Henry Ware, Andrew Norton, Noah 
Worcester, Moses Stuart and Leonard Woods. In later years came 
Lyman Beecher, the Alexanders, President Hopkins, Professor Edward 
A. Park, and many others too numerous to mention. Dr. Charles 
Dodge, a Philadelphian and a graduate of Princeton College, is one of 
the most dignified of our Calvanistic philosophers, but William Ellery 
Channing is undoubtedly at the head of the earlier schools of theological 
and metaphysical writers. Later, came a more brilliant school of 
theological writers. Among these were Orville Dewey, William H. 
Furness, John Freeman Clark, Henry W. Bellows, Andrew Peabody 
and William R. Alger. These were Unitarian writers. Theodore 
Parker, Cyrus A. Bartol, Moncure D. Conway and Octavius P. 
Frothingham were among the writers who started in religious work and 
gradually employed their pens in secular writings. i\Iark Hopkins, of 
Williams College, and Noah Porter, of Yale, are among the most 
distinguished of our mental scientists. Thomas C. Upham, a professor 
in Bowdoin, wrote a work in 1831 on the elements of mental philos- 
ophy. James Marsh, president of the University of Vermont, was an 
influential Transcendentalist. Lawrence P. Hiscock was a profound 
writer on metaphysics as a science. Francis Wayland, president of 
Brown University, was an excellent writer on political economy, 
philosophy and ethics. Taylor Lewis, a professor in Union College, 
was a linguist, philosopher and scientist. Each church had its staimch 
denominational writers, some of whom have exerted a strong influence, 
notably John McClintock, of the Methodists. 

The "Knickerbocker writers" is a term applied to Wa^ington 
Irving, James Kirk Paulding, Joseph Rodman Drake and F'itz-Green 
Halleck. Washington Irving was born in New York City in 1783, and 
absorbed there the curious life which he has so delicately and faithfully 
portrayed. At nineteen he wrote for a newspaper edited by his 
brother Peter, taking up theological and social topics, and using the 
name of "Jonathan Old-Style. " In 1814 he visited Europe, where he 




in-:XRV WADSWORTH LOXGKELLOW. 



FICTION AND TRUTH. 427 

met Washington Allston, the first distinguished American painter. On 
his return to New York he started the Sabnagiiiidi., a name still 
preserved in New York to signify what is best in literature and in art. 
In this paper the social foibles and fads were served up in a way which 
was thoroughly original. A few years later, Irving gained the friend- 
ship of some distinguished Englishmen, and from this time his good 
fortune dated. His books sold for excellent sums, and he was the first 
American to make a really excellent living by his pen. Charles Brockden 
Brown was the only man before him to rely entirely upon the proceeds 
brought him by his pen. Irving' s last work was his five-volumed life 
of Washington. James Kirke Paulding, who was five years older than 
Irvnng, worked upon the Salniagiindi under Irving' s supervision, 
beginning his career as a poet. In the course of his life he wrote 
novels, humorous sketches and pamphlets as well, his "Dutchman's 
Fireside" being the best known. Joseph Rodman Drake was a writer 
of delicate touch. He was born in 1795, and lived to be only twenty- 
five years old. Fitz-Green Halleck was born in Connecticut, in 1790, 
and lived till 1867. He wrote, among many excellent poems, that of 
"Marco Bozarris," known to every schoolboy. Richard Henry Dana 
was a scholarly poet, and Charles Sprague, a Bostonian, wrote verses 
of high quality. Francis Scott Key is especially known for the "Star- 
Spangled Banner," written during the siege of Fort McHenry, in 
Baltimore, during the war of 181 2. There are several other writers 
who are famous for one poem. Samuel Wordsworth wrote "The Old 
Oaken Bucket;" John Howard Payne, "Home Sweet Home," and 
Albert G. Green "Old Grimes is Dead." William Augustus Muhlen- 
berg is the author of that tender hymn, "I would not live always." 

William Cullen Bryant, the oldest of our great American poets, was 
born in 1794. At ten, he was writing verses for the country papers, 
and by the time he was in college was already famous as a writer. He 
was but twenty-two years old when he .wrote his celebrated poem, 
"Thanatopsis. " This was published in the Norih American Review^ 
in 1816. Bryant is, as everyone knows, a poet of nature, whose verses 
are as polished, though far less spontaneous, than those of Wordsworth. 
He was over seventy when he added to his extensive writings a 
translation of the "Illiad." This is very generally accepted as the best 
English Homer. Later, he published a translation of the "Odyssey." 

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and John Greenleaf Whittier were 
both born in 1807. Early in his manhood Longfellow took the 
professorship of modern languages at Bowdoin College, spending three 



428 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

years in Europe to qualif}- himself for the position. Those three years 
in Europe have given us many of Longfellow's most excellent poems, 
although those which are most valued by Americans are the ones which 
preserve so accurately and tenderly the life of New England and the 
legends of early America. In the list of his works is a most excellent 
translation of the divine comedy of Dante. John Greenleaf Whittier was 
a writer conscientious, true and fearless, but lacked the high art of Long- 
fellow, and the sympathetic quality, although at heart he was most 
sympathetic and humane. That he was a natural philanthropist and a 
writer fearless of consequences, there is no need to say. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes was born in Cambridge, Connecticut, in 
1809. Like Bryant, Longfellow and Lowell, he started out as a lawyer, 
but soon took up medicine, studying in Europe. He is a lyrical writer 
of great facility, but his prose works are more popular than his poetical 
ones. His "Breakfast-table Sketches" are among the American 
classics. Like Holmes, James Russell Lowell has written both in poetry 
and prose. His poems have been published in numerous volumes; 
some of them were elaborate and allegorical, others caustic and 
humorous. At one time he was the leading American critic. 

Edgar Allen Poe is one of the most picturesque figures in our 
national literature. He was a melancholy man, who hated restraint of 
every sort, and who was the slave of morbid fancies and of opium. He 
was not the first man to rise by stress of these misfortunes to a position 
which more wholesome and temperate men could hardly hope to attain. 

Among the painstaking, though not famous, American poets are 
James Gates Percival, Nathaniel P. Willis, George Morris, Edward 
Pinkney, Charles Fenno Hoffman and George H. Calvert. Dr. Thomas 
Dunn English was made famous by a single song, "Ben Bolt." George 
H. Boker, of Philadelphia, was one of the earliest dramatic writers of 
this country. C. B. Cranch was one of the most scholarly writers of his 
day, and Alfred B. Street is known by his poems of nature. He was 
also a painter. W. W. Story has joined poetry and sculpture. John G. 
Saxe was the earliest of our excellent American humorists. Alice and 
Phoebe Cary were among the first women poets. Among the best 
known of the early historians are Richard Hildreth, born in Massachu- 
setts, in 1807; George Bancroft, author of the chief history of the 
United States, also born in Massachusetts; George Gorham Palfrey, 
author of a history of New England, and William Hickling Prescott, 
the most famous and brilliant of American historians. His "History 
of Ferdinand and Isabella" was translated immediately upon its 



FICTION AND TRUTH. 429 

publication into five European languages. The "Conquest of Mexico," 
"The Conquest of Peru" and "Philip H" were not less successful. No 
historian has a higher reputation or a more dignified and eloquent style. 
John Lothrop Motley is best known for his "Rise of the Dutch 
Republic," and "The History of the United Netherlands." George 
W. Green's "Historical Review of the American Revolution" is the 
best record of the time. 

A considerable number of travelers have won distinction as writers. 
Among these are Elisha Kane and Isaac Hays. James Fennimore 
Cooper was the first American to write novels which could be considered 
extensively popular. His works are thoroughly national, full of 
romantic interest, and embody, as no other books do, the wild, free life 
of the American frontier. He also wrote an able history of the United 
States, a series of biographies of naval officers, and an attack on the 
system of trial by jury. 

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1804. 
He was a morbid boy with a most studious tendency, and his surround- 
ings were melancholy in the extreme. His mystical, elegant and 
romantic novels are the natural outcome of his refined and morbid 
disposition. He lived upon historic ground, saw the value of his 
associations, and embodied his ideas in tales of unequaled fantasy and 
power. To mention the good American writers in fiction would be a 
task too extensive to contemplate. Those who exercised a wide 
influence will be mentioned later. 

The early part of the century saw some orators unequaled for their 
powers. The speeches of Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, Henry 
Clay, Edward Everett, Rufus Choate, William H. Seward, Charles 
Sumner, Robert C. Winthrop, Wendell Philips and William Lloyd 
Garrison are famous. William Lloyd Garrison, in 1831, established a 
weekly paper in Boston called the Liberator. Its purpose was the 
immediate emancipation of the slaves, and it preached, as no other 
paper had ever dared to, the iniquity of slavery and the need for its 
speedy termination. It was not, however, the first paper of the sort 
ever published in the country. During General Jackson's administra- 
tion a Quaker named Benjamin Lundy had begun a newspaper called 
the Geiims of Universal Einancipation. This urged that slaves should 
be gradually freed. Garrison had been the assistant editor of the paper, 
but the religion which he preached accepted of no compromises. He 
said in the first edition: "I will not equivocate; I will not excuse; I 
will not retreat a single inch, and I will be heard." In all the perse- 



430 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

cutions, revilement and legislative rebuke which followed, he was true 
to his word. People who sympathized with him and upheld his views 
were called Abolitionists — a word which to speak even now arouses 
feelings of enthusiasm and deep hatred. "Fanatic" was the kindest 
and most considerate of all the names which these determined people 
were called by their enemies — and their friends were few. It was 
nothing new to say that slavery was wrong, and that the Republic was 
inconsistent in keeping a constitution which set forth the libert>- and 
equality of all persons, and yet permitted three million persons within 
its borders to be deprived of their liberty. 

So vigorous had Southern rule been, and so craftily had its 
supremacy been sustained in Congress, that it was little less than treason 
to speak of the possibility of manumission. The Church, both in the 
North and the South, was prompt to hold up the Divine authorit}- for 
slavery, and to quote the Bible in its defence. As the newer Southern 
States were admitted to the Union and their territory opened up, slaves 
were brought in great numbers from the slave-breeding States of the 
Atlantic and placed here upon great sugar and cotton plantations. 
These plantations had been cultivated and stocked with negroes, on 
borrowed money. This mone}- was borrowed largely from Northern 
capitalists, and this was one of the many reasons why the institution of 
slaver>' met with such staunch support in the North. 

The Abolitionist were men and women of great independence and 
vigor of thought. Almost without exception they were the leaders in 
the communities in which they lived. Their private lives were 
irreproachable, their standing in all ways honorable — the fact that they 
had the moral courage to stand against the world is guarantee enough 
that they were disinterested and morally brave — but they were ostracized 
by the States, the Church and society as if they had been criminals or 
offenders against decency. They were accused of the most injudicious 
acts, which have never been proven against them. It was said that 
they tried to lash the slaves, by their eloquence, into insurrection, but 
the truth is that their methods were directly opposed to this, and that 
their appeal was made to the conscience of the slave-holder and to the 
legislators of the nation. 

They were held responsible largely for the Southampton massacre, 
although probably not one of the desperate men engaged in that had ever 
heard of abolition, of William Lloyd Garrison or of the Liberator. In 
August, 1831, a negro slave named Nat. Turner led a little band of six 
men in a passionate revolt which has been dignified by the name of 



FICTION AND TRUTH. 43 1 

insurrection. He was a man of much force of character and a natural 
mystic. He heard voices in the air and saw signs in the sky. Roaming 
at night in the forests, he saw visions and portends which pointed out 
his divine mission. The Bible was full of promises which he thought 
pointed especially to him. He believed that he was to lead his suffering 
people to freedom. But he was impractical and lacked executive fore- 
sight. He took but six men in his confidence, and with them started 
out to go from house to house and kill every white person within. 
Beginning at Turner's own house, they killed his master, and going on 
from plantation to plantation were joined by the slaves, and in forty- 
eight hours killed fifty-five white persons without loss to themselves. 
But the band finally became separated, and was attacked by two bodies 
of white men, who succeeded in dispersing them. Thus the insurrec- 
tion was quelled at the outset. The country was searched for the 
offenders. Turner had escaped to the woods and lived under a pile of 
fence rails for six weeks, marking the passage of the dreary days on a 
notched stick. He was discovered and took to the wheat-fields, where 
he lived among the wheat stacks for ten days. Again he was 
discovered, but escaped and kept the whole country searching for him for 
some time. One day he crept from a hole beneath a felled pine tree and 
stood face to face with a man who had a leveled rifle in his hand. He 
surrendered, and one week later was hanged. Of the fifty-three other 
negroes formally tried, seventeen were convicted and hanged, twelve 
were transported and the rest acquitted. 

But the fiercest retribution did not come from the law. Slave- 
holders held that they had a right to do as they chose with their own 
property, and to torture, punish, or execute at their will any negro in 
their possession whom they suspected of offense. The terror which 
spread through the South counterbalanced to a certain extent the suf- 
ferings of these poor blacks. Not a slave-holder slept securely in his 
bed. The consciousness of the iniquity upon which that part of the 
country was built and nourished made the proprietors constantly fearful. 
Every negro was watched with suspicion, and the most innocent actions 
threw the white community into terror. It was hardly believed in the 
South that the negro was a human being, yet it was perceived now that 
he was enough of a man to long for liberty, and take revenge for out- 
rage. The people of the South virtually admitted all that the aboli- 
tionists ever claimed, and that was that the negro was a man. 

In 1832, Garrison founded the New England Anti-Slaver}- Society. 
This was the parent of many like societies in different parts of the 



432 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

country. To resist such agitation and to act as a sop to the morbid 
apprehensions of the slave-holders, President Jackson urged Congress to 
pass a law excluding anti-slavery publications from the mails. This 
bill was finally defeated, but not until the mails of the South had been 
examined over and over again in the search for Abolitionist pamphlets 
or anti-slavery expressions. Large rewards were offered in some of the 
slave-holding States for the apprehension of several of the leading Abo- 
litionists. Mobs became frequent wherever the anti-slaver>' societies 
worked. A madness seemed to possess the people, and the slightest 
sympathy with the blacks was severely punished. One man was 
obliged to fly for his life in New Orleans because he offered a Bible to a 
slave. A doctor in Washington was thrown into prison because a 
package he received was accidentally wrapped in an anti-slavery paper. 
It was frequent diversion to burn the houses of Abolitionists, and destroy 
the printing office of any organ of the party. In 1836, a mob attacked 
a warehouse in Alton, Illinois, where a printing press was stored 
belonging to the Rev. E. P. Lovejoy. This was the fourth time that 
his printing materials had been destroyed and his paper suppressed. 
This time the matter was made certain by the murder of the editor. 
But they also succeeded in making him immortal, and he is known as one 
of the first martyrs of the cause of liberty. As a result of this outrage 
the Abolitionists won a new convert, Wendell Phillips, who, for thirty 
years, exercised a unique influence in the moral history of America. 

Late in the year 1836, Pennsylvania Hall, in Philadelphia, was burned 
because it had been dedicated by an anti-slavery meeting, and the young 
poet Whittier had read one of his unqualified poems on freedom in it. 
In a few cases attempts were made to open schools for colored children 
in the North, but the teachers were always driven from the town, the 
schools destroyed and the books burned. Such acts were not the work 
of ruffians, but of the most dignified and influential citizens. 

But nothing could stay the storm of discussion that swept over the 
countr}'. Petitions by the thousand were sent to Congress, begging 
that it would exercise its imdoubted right of abolishing slaver)- in the 
national domain which was under its exclusive control and of stopping 
the domestic slave trade. A handful of men, led by John Quincy 
Adams, fought for these petitions, but against them were all of the 
Southern and most of the Northern representatives. Adams stood to 
his principles in the midst of turmoil and disapprobation which would 
have silenced a weaker man. When, in 1835, William Slade asked 
that a petition for the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the 



FICTION AND TRUTH. 433 

District of Columbia be referred to a committee, the proposal met with 
an uproar in the House. The representatives from the Southern States 
left the House, and this was termed the secession of the Southern mem- 
bers. The word "secession" was cherished afterward. But the North 
was silenced by a compromise the next day and the Southern members 
consented to be appeased. Such compromises were constant, but there 
was a growing determination among the citizens of the North to be 
heard. Neither State nor Federal legislation could altogether quiet 
them. With the exception of a few Philadelphia Quakers, there had 
been, up to this period, but few men or women in the North who did 
not consider it his or her duty to return fugitive slaves to their masters. 
But the growing sympathy with the oppressed race changed this, and 
that curious system known as the "Underground Railway" was formed, 
by which fugitive slaves were helped from house to house, clothed, fed 
and harbored, and sent safely to Canada. 

In 1 841 occurred one of the many incidents relating to this period 
which are of such interest to the student of this question. An Ameri- 
can slave ship, the Creole^ sailed from Richmond with a cargo of one 
hundred and thirty-five slaves, gathered on the Virginia plantations. 
Among them was a man named Madison Washington. This man had 
once tasted liberty, for he had escaped to Canada, but had come back 
to release his wife, who was still a slave. He had been retaken and 
sold, and was now to be sent to a far southwest plantation where escape 
would be more difficult. As the Creole neared the Bahama Islands, 
Washington put himself at the head of nineteen of his fellows, whose 
only arms were four knives. These attacked the crew and succeeded 
in confining the captain and the white passengers, among whom were 
their owners. One slave trader was killed and several wounded. They 
forced the captain to take the boat into Nassau, New Providence, where 
all not engaged actively in the revolt were declared to be free. Wash- 
ington and his eighteen companions were detained to be tried in the 
English courts — though practically their freedom was secured as soon 
as they came under the protection of England. There were some 
people in the North who were strong-minded enough to rejoice in the 
restoration to their natural freedom of one hundred and thirty-five 
human beings, but Calhoun, Clay and other Southern Senators 
denounced the English government for protecting acts which they pro- 
nounced piracy and murder, 

A scene of violence took place in the House of Representatives when 
Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio, offered a series of resolutions in which he 



434 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

claimed that even^ man had a natural right in himself, and that once 
beyond the boundaries of the United States every slave was free. A 
vote of censure was passed on these resolutions by an overwhelming 
majority. Giddings resigned his seat, returned to Ohio, and appealed 
to his constituents. It was a marked sign of increasing sympathy with 
the anti-slavery cause that he was returned as quickly as possible by an 
increased majority of thousands, and from a State which a short time 
before had driven the teachers of negro schools beyond their borders in 
contumely. At this very time the Supreme Court of the United States 
was deciding upon the right of the recapture of fugitive sla^'es. What 
it finally decided, after much discussion, was that the law of slavery was 
supreme in the free, as in the slave States, and that it was the duty of 
every State to aid the slave-holder everywhere in recapturing the slave. 
Nowhere was the agitation upon the question of slavery more profound 
than in the churches. It was certainly a difficult nut for them to 
crack. The question of the marriage relation alone among the slaves 
was one which was quite enough to divide a church. But after all, the 
question was, and remained for many years, whether Africans were men 
and women with instincts of loyalty, purity and affection, or whether 
they were simply brutes, born to servitude, with no rights which the 
white men were bound to respect. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Johnson's "Garrison and the Times." 

Tanner's "Martyrdom of Lovejoy " 
Fiction — L. Neville's "Kd'ith Allen." 
Mrs. Stowe's "Ured." 
W. D. O'Connor's "Harrington." 
lieverly Tucker's "Partisan I^eader." 
\V. Adams' "The Sable Cloud." 
Holt's "Abraham Page." 
Poetry— Whitticr's "Voices of Freedom.'" 
Marion Harlaud's "Judith." 



CHAPTER LXXXI. 

SECOND SEMINOLE WAR — ELECTION OF VAN BUREN — FINANCIAL 

DEPRESSION — ELECTION OF WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON — 

THE DORR REBELLION — THE MORMONS — 

ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. 




^/.I-* N the midst of Jackson's administration came the 
^ Seminole war. The Sacs and Foxes, Chickasaws 
and Choctaws had all been removed west of the 
Mississippi, but the Seminoles, in Florida, steadily- 
refused to move. President Jackson was equalh' 
determined that they should leave their eastern 
reservation, and he sent seven chiefs westward to inves- 
tigate the lands designed for them. With them went a 
commission, whose persuasions induced the chiefs to 
sign a treaty, without consulting the rest of the tribe. 
A large part of the Seminoles were determined to stay 
where they were, and a young chief named Osceola, 
the son of a half-breed woman and an Englishman, 
headed the opposition. His wife was a maroon, i. e. , a 
a negro born among the Indians of Florida, and she had been captured 
by the former mistress of her mother and held as a slave. Osceola had 
the natural pride and steadfastness of an Englishman, added to the 
fiercer Indian characteristics. He wished to avenge his wife's captivity 
as well as to maintain the independence of his people. Under his 
leadership the Seminoles declared hostilities in 1835. Major Francis 
L. Dade was sent out with about one hundred and forty men against 
Osceola, but he and his men were fired upon by an unseen foe before 
they reached their destination, and only two of them escaped with their 
lives. The United States sent out General Gaines with seven hundred 
men, in February, from New Orleans. They attempted to march 
across the Florida country. The expedition was entirely unsuccessful, 



436 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

and General Scott assumed command. The Indians and negroes, 
meanwhile, were preying upon wagon trains and farms, and the 
country all about was kept in a state of terror. The summer of 1836 
was very sickly, and the military posts were almost deserted. Not till 
autumn was any fighting done, and then the Americans failed to drive 
their enemies from their dark swamps. A change of commanders was 
tried, and Thomas S. Jessup entered upon the winter campaign with 
eight thousand men. The Indians retreated toward the everglades, 
and in February, 1837, they sued for peace. In March, the agreement 
to cease from war was signed at Fort Dade, the Indians stipulating 
that they were to remain in Florida. This the Government refused to 
permit, but seized seven hundred Indians and negroes, before the 
decision was announced to them, and sent them off to Tampa for ship- 
ment. Osceola was sent to Charleston and locked in the prison there, 
where he soon died of grief But there were still many Indians and 
maroons hiding in the swamps and woods of Florida, and in May, 1837, 
General Zachary Taylor was sent out to hunt them from their places of 
refuge. Thirty-three blood-hounds had been imported from Cuba to 
track the fugitives. This plan was approved by both President Jack- 
son and General Taylor; but, fortunately for the reputation of the 
United States, the blood-hounds would not track Indians, as they had 
only been taught to hunt negroes. 

Several other commanders made ineffectual attempts to complete 
the subjection of these hunted creatures, and finally General William 
J. Worth, a man of considerable ability, was sent out in the 
spring of 1841 to conduct a summer campaign. Worth's troops, in 
small parties, went up the river and penetrated the swamps to the- 
islands, where they destroyed the crops and the huts of the enemy. In 
a short time peace was secured. General Worth received the surrender 
of all the bands, and sent them to the west. The war had lasted seven 
years. Over five hundred persons had been taken from their wild, free 
life, and reduced to bondage. The fugitive slaves of the South no 
longer found an asylum in the everglades of Florida. This victory- had 
cost the Americans forty million dollars, which was twice as much as 
was paid for the territories of Louisiana and Florida together. For 
each person reduced to slavery', the lives of three white men had been 
expended. But the slaveholders were satisfied. The great-grandsons 
of the slaves of their great-grandfathers had been returned to them, 
and they no longer made moan over their human property lying waste 
in the southern territory. 



A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF. 437 

Martin Van Buren, of New York, was elected President in 1837. 
Like General Jackson, he was the candidate of the Democratic party. 
The opposition was now called the Whig party, and the chief quarrel 
between them was concerning State sovereignty. In this same year a 
rebellion broke out in Canada, and many of the people of the States 
bordering on Canada joined the rebellion — for there was a general 
sympathy in America with the insurgents. The United States made 
great efforts to maintain neutrality, and though it did not entirely suc- 
ceed, the country had the discretion to avoid war. 

The dissatisfaction with the Democratic administration was increas- 
ing. The financial troubles of 1837 spread over the country, and were 
laid generally to the mismanagement of the public funds and the ill- 
advised method of conducting the State banks. In 1840 came a 
political revolution. The Whig members of Congress proposed a 
national convention, at which a candidate for the presidency should be 
nominated. The canvass which followed this nomination began a new 
era in elections. The ratification meetings which have since become 
so popular were started at that time, and as the mode of travel was 
more convenient than it had ever been previously, they were attended 
by vast numbers of people. General William Henry Harrison, of Ohio, 
known for his soldierly qualities, was nominated as the candidate for the 
Whigs. He had been one of the earliest pioneers of the Far West, and 
some one gave him the name of the "L,og-cabin Candidate." All over 
the country log cabins were built for political meetings. They were 
erected even in the midst of large cities, and the popular "mass meet- 
ings" were held in them. At the political celebrations the only drink 
was cider, the favorite beverage of the farmers. Ringing campaign 
songs were composed about the "Hero of Tippecanoe," and "Tippe- 
canoe and Tyler, too" — John Tyler being the candidate for the vice- 
presidency. Never before had there been such a boisterous campaign, 
and an overwhelming vote was given for General Harrison, who was 
inaugurated President in 1841. He lived but a month after his inaugu- 
ration, and Vice-President John Tyler, of Virginia, became President 
for the remainder of the four years. 

In Rhode Island, in 1842, there was a revolt against the old colonial 
charter under which the State had always been governed. In this, the 
rio^ht of suffrage was restricted to the free-holders and their eldest sons, 
so that the popular representation had become very unequal. In the 
legislature of 1840, for instance, twenty-nine thousand of the inhabitants 
were represented by seventy members, and eighty thousand by thirty- 



438 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



four members. It was in vain that the people appealed to the legisla- 
ture to take measures for the reform of the constitution. A new 
constitution was formed by a popular convention in October, 1841, and 
accepted by the majorit)' of voters. An election was held under it the 
following April, and Thomas Wilson Dorr chosen Governor. When he 
and the other State officers elected with him tried to assume their 
offices, they were resisted by those who held office under the charter, at 
the head of whom was Samuel W. King. Both sides took up arms 
and appealed to the Federal Government. The Dorr party were twice 




I.AK ) , 1 1 AH. 



dispersed without bloodshed. Dorr was convicted of high treason and 
sentenced to imprisonment for life, but after three years was released 
and restored to full citizenship. Meanwhile the Rhode Island legisla- 
ture had called a convention to draw up a constitution, and in May, 
1843, a satisfactory constitution was ratified. 

In New York, at about this time, there was trouble along the 
Hudson river, where the estates of the old Dutch patroons lay. The 
tenants who lived upon these estates were unwilling to pay rent to 



A HOUSE DIVIDED AGAINST ITSELF. 439 

the descendants of the early proprietors, and for a time there was armed 
resistance. 

In Illinois, there was also much disturbance. The Mormons, or 
"Latter-Day Saints," had built a city named Nauvoo. At this time 
they had been founded fourteen years, and followed in all particulars 
the law which Joseph Smith, their founder, claimed to have discovered 
written on gold plates buried in the earth. The Mormons had first 
established themselves in Missouri, but were driven thence into Illinois. 
Here they were again assailed by mobs and forced out into the wilder- 
ness. In the midst of that wilderness they found the exquisite spot in 
the interior of Utah where they made their final settlement and still 
remain. 

President Tyler soon lost his popularity. He had been accused of 
tr^'ing to break faith with the party which elected him. Whether this 
is true or not, it is certain that he broke his word with his Cabinet, and 
they all resigned, excepting Daniel Webster. As Webster was engaged 
in some important negotiations with England concerning the boundary 
line between IMaine and New Brunswick, he felt that he owed it to the 
people to remain. In 1842, Mr. Webster, on the part of the United 
States, and Lord Ashburton, on the part of England, concluded a treaty 
which defined the boundary lines between New Brunswick and Maine, 
The line was also traced on to the Pacific Ocean, as it stands on all 
later maps. 

When Tyler had taken his position of sympathy with the Southern 
States he formed a close alliance with Calhoun, the leader of tne 
Southern party, and devoted himself for the rest of his administration 
to the cause of the South. As a result of this came the annexation of 
Texas. The Spaniards and the French had contested for Texas and 
established rival missions or religious settlements through it. Finally, 
the province of Texas revolted from Mexico and declared itself an inde- 
pendent State. Large American colonies had been established there 
and the Americans took part in its struggle for independence. The 
slave-holding element fixed envious eyes upon this great tract of land, 
which was more than twice as large as the States of New York, Penn- 
sylvania and Ohio put together. ]\Ir. Calhoun admitted that the object 
of securing Texas was to uphold the interests of slavery, extend its 
influence, and secure its permanent duration. The Whigs saw very 
clearly that if this immense tract of land was peopled with slaves and 
representation was determined by population, that freedom would be 
entirely outvoted in the Government forever. Mr. Webster's unwill- 



440 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

ingness, as Secretan- of State, to abet the admission of Texas caused 
liiin to be removed from office. Mr. Upshur was put in his place, but 
was killed soon after his appointment, and in IMarch, 1844, Mr. Cal- 
houn, the leader of the Southern faction, was made Secretary of State. 
A resolution for admission passed the United States House of Repre- 
sentatives February 25, 1845, ^^^ ^^^^ United States Senate on March 
ist. It was approved immediately by the President three days before 
lie went out of office, and the United States assumed the Texas debt of 
seven and a half million dollars. 

Florida was admitted as a State to the Union in 1845 — ^^^^ same 
year that James K. Polk, of Tennessee, was elected President of the 
United States. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History — Jones' '■Republic of Texas." 

Urquhart's "Annexation of Texas." 
Fiction — Lowell's "Bigelow Papers." 
Mayne Reid's "Osceola.'' 
General Donaldson's "Sergeant Atkins." 
E. C. Z. Judson's "The Volunteer." 
H. Hazel's "The Light Dragoon." 



CHAPTER LXXXII. 



ifjB ^nh yimn nl HanlBri^. 



THE ADMINISTRATION OF POLK, AND THE WAR WITH MEXICO- 
VARIOUS SEVERE BATTLES — CONQUEST OF CALIFORNIA AND 
NEW MEXICO — OCCUPATION OF THE CITY OF 
MEXICO — TREATY OF PEACE — BIRTH OF 
A THE FREE SOIL PARTY AND 

--^ ELECTION OF TAYLOR. 



HE news of Polk's election was the first report 
ever transmitted by telegraph in America, being 
sent on a line which Professor Morse had just 
completed between Washington and Baltimore. 
The combined opposition of the Whig party and 
a new party called the Liberty party, which was 
formed to resist the influence of slaver}', were 
unable to cope with Democratic supremacy, and Mr. 
Polk was elected by a considerable majority. He came 
into power with the certainty of a war with Mexico on 
his hands. A strong naval force had previously been sent 
into the Gulf of Mexico, and all the military which could 
be spared ordered to the southwestern frontier. At the 
time of Polk's inauguration, three thousand six hundred 
soldiers were at Corpus Christi, Texas, under General Zachary Taylor. 
Texas was annexed by joint resolution to the United States in 
March, 1845, and a year later Taylor moved southward to a point on 
the Rio Grande, opposite Matamoras. At the same time he called upon 
the Governors of Louisiana and Texas for five thousand volunteers, and, 
wishing to open communication with Point Isabel, moved eastward. 
The Mexican general, x-Vrista, wished to hinder his return, and planted 
six thousand men across his road at Palo Alto, nine miles from Mata- 
moras. When Taylor returned and found his way blockaded, he gave 
battle. He had with him some heavy guns which worked terrible 




442 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

havoc in the Mexican infantry, and in the midst of the conflict the 
prairie grass between the two lines took fire, furnishing a thick curtain 
of smoke, behind which Arista drew off his men. The next morning 
the ^Mexicans took position in a deep ravine at Resaca de la Palma. 
This ravine was shaped like a horseshoe, and the open side was towards 
the advancing Americans. But notwithstanding this superior position, 
the Americans succeeded in capturing the enemy's artillery, and putting 
the infantry to flight. 

On the 13th of May, before news of these events reached Wash- 
ington, Congress formally declared war, and authorized the President 
to call for fifty thousand volunteers for one year. The m.ass of the 
people of the United States were not willing to go to war about a mere 
question of boundary. They were somewhat dismayed by the call for 
volunteers, and thought that it was hardly worth risking so much 
merely to insure to the United States another hundred miles of territor}'. 
Texas claimed that its western boundary was the Rio Grande. IMexico 
claimed that it was the river Neuces. Congress pretended to believe 
that Mexico had first declared war, and President Polk labored in his 
message of 1846 to show that the territory of the United States had 
been invaded by the Mexicans. The fallacy of this statement was 
exposed by Abraham Lincoln, who Vv^as then a member of the House of 
Representatives. However, many volunteers were sent by the south- 
western States, and when General Taylor's army was swelled to seven 
thousand men, he approached the fortified town of ^lonterey. This was 
garrisoned bv ten thousand Mexicans, under the command of General 
Santa Anna, who had formerly been President of Alexico, and was 
considered the best soldier of that republic. When Taylor sat down 
before the city with his force, he sent General Worth's division to plant 
itself on the enemy's line of retreat. The Americans took first one and 
then another of the fortified eminences upon the river, and on the 23d 
of September they fought their way into the streets of the city. These 
were held by stout barricades and nobly defended, but as Taylor pressed 
from the east and Worth from the west, the INIexicans were finally 
obliged to yield. 

The winter passed without any brilliant engagement, but in May, 
1847, Colonel Philip Kearney was ordered to organize an expedition for 
the occupation of New IMexico and Upper California. He marched 
into Santa Vq on the i8th of August with eighteen hundred men, and 
issued a proclamation declaring the inhabitants absolved from their 
allegiance to Mexico, and organizing the State as a Territory of the 



THE SAD PI^AIN OF MONTEREY. 



443 



United States. He appointed a civil governor and hastened on to 
California with a small cavalry force. John C. Fremont, with an 
exploring expedition, was in California at the time, and w^as ordered by 
the Government to see that no foreigners should trespass upon the 
country ; in other words, that the Spaniards and Mexicans should be 
irritated as much as possible. He learned that the IMexican commandant 
of California was on the point of expelling some American settlers, and 
this gave him the excuse for at once assuming the offensive. He 
captured the city of Sonoma and succeeded in securing independence to 




OLDEST HOUSE IN THE UNITED STATES, SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO. 



the settlers. Not that they were eager for independence, but the gallant 
young captain was determined to make American patriots of them, even 
against their will. Commodore Stockton, who commanded the American 
fleet, had joined Fremont, taken possession of Los Angeles, and then 
of ]\Ionterey, the capital of California, and set up a provisional govern- 
ment, with himself at the head. 

Meanwhile, the Government, considering that Taylor's manner of 
conducting the war was far too conciliatory, sent General Winfield 



444 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Scott to take the chief command and conduct the war in Old Mexico as 
should seem to him best. He reached Taylor in Januar}- of 1847, took 
ten thousand of Taylor's troops, and left that general not quite seven 
thousand. News of this reached Santa Anna, and he prepared to strike 
while his enemy was thus divided. Taylor heard that the Mexicans 
were approaching in force, and he fell back to a strong position south 
of Saltillo. Here, among the thin, sharp mountain walls, and the 
innumerable passes and ravines, is a broad plateau, known now as the 
Battle Ground of Buena Vista. Taylor had with him in fighting 
condition but fifty-two hundred men. Santa Anna's force at the very- 
least was twelve thousand. Cavalry, of course, could not be used on 
ground of this nature, and, indeed, the attacking party could not even 
get their artillery in position. Taylor placed his men in groups upon 
the tops of the bluffs near the edge of the plateau. Here they fought 
through February 2 2d, and on the 23d renewed the contest. The 
plateau was mid-way up the mountain, and Santa Anna sent part of his 
men to descend from the higher bluffs and others to scale the incline 
from below. Throughout the day the ground was hotly contested. 
Now a Mexican and now an American column was forced to draw back. 
As night closed in the result of the day was still undecided, but when 
morning broke the Americans found that the Mexicans had retreated. 
They learned later that the Mexican loss was much heavier than their 
own. 

Scott had taken his army to within a few miles of Vera Cruz. Vera 
Cruz was a strongly fortified city of seven thousand inhabitants. The 
castle of San Juan de Ulloa stood about a thousand yards off shore on a 
reef commanding all the channels of the harbor. The ^lexicans had 
supposed that it would be impossible for any boats to reach the city 
without coming under the guns of this strong castle, but Scott landed 
his men by means of surf boats, and bombarded the castle for four days. 
The city and castle surrendered on the 27th. 

The capital of Mexico was still two hundred miles distant, but 
toward this Scott marched as soon as he received the necessary supplies. 
At Cerro Gordo he was intercepted by the Mexicans, who had taken 
position on the heights at a strong mountain pass, with a battery 
commanding every turn of the road. But the Americans climbed up 
paths which the Mexicans had thought inaccessible and fell upon the 
enemy's rear, while others bravely contested the pass. The intrench- 
ments were finally carried by storm, and the guns turned upon the 
rapidly-retreating Mexicans. Santa Anna fled with his men toward 



THE SAD PLAIN OF MONTEREY. 445 

Jalapa. Scott followed him and took the place and waited here for 
reinforcements, which soon arrived. Santa Anna opened negotiations 
for peace, and promised to stop fighting if one million dollars was paid 
to him personally. He wished an installment of ten thousand imme- 
diately, and this Scott paid to him. But the Mexican Congress 
decided that the cause was not yet desperate, and Santa Anna's 
arrangement was disregarded. Scott, therefore, marched on with his 
men to the city of Mexico. He found that this was approached by 
causeways, crossing low and marshy ground, and these causeways were 
commanded by rocky hills which were strongly fortified. Santa Anna 
intercepted him and brought about the battle of Contreras. This was 
fought at the west of the city upon a rugged field of broken lava. The 
ground was terrible, the artillery and the cavalr>' almost useless, and 
even the infantry were injured not a little by falls upon the treacherous 
and broken crust. The Mexicans were finally surrounded, and many 
of them were cut down upon the spot, while others escaped through the 
American lines and took to the mountain paths. Two thousand 
Mexicans were killed or wounded, and nearly a thousand captured, 
including four generals. All the stores and ammunition fell into the 
hands of the Americans, who had lost but sixty in killed and wounded. 

Following close upon the battle of Contreras came that of Cheru- 
busco. Here Santa Anna had concentrated his entire force. A large 
stone convent guarded the bridge, across which the Americans were 
obliged to pass, and the river at this point was very wide. The 
Mexicans were prepared to defend the bridge stoutly, having pierced 
the building for the use of muskets, and surrounded it by a strong 
field-work. But the Americans approached by ditches and dykes 
closer and closer, till at last they crossed the moat, scaled the parapet, 
and won the convent — and the battle of Cherubusco. Their loss, 
however, had been very heavy. 

Scott's next movement was, on September 7th, upon the Molino del 
Rey (the King's Mill), a group of strong stone buildings, where it was 
said that the church bells of the city were being cast into cannons. 
Not far from this stood the castle of Chapultepec, upon the great rock 
of that name. The buildings were five hundred yards long. They 
had been barricaded, loop-holed, and provided with sand-bag parapets. 
Not far from these buildings was the .Casa Mata, another strong 
building prepared for defence. Between these two buildings was a 
batter}^, and about them the Mexicans had gathered in force. Scott 
was located upon the southern side of the city, and, therefore, left 



446 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Worth to conduct the siege of these buildings, which were upon the 
western side of the city. Scott did not himself think the castle of 
Chapultepec of much importance, and when Worth begged that he 
might be allowed to take it if possible, Scott refused his request. He 
therefore prepared his men to take the Molino del Rey, and surrounded 
that building before daylight in the morning. His orders were to 
capture the battery, but when the men crept up to the spot where they 
last saw it, they found it had been moved. A moment later it opened upon 
their flanks, killing more than half the attacking column. While the 
Americans were reforming, the IMexicans rushed upon the ground and 
killed the wounded. But the Americans recovered and charged again. 
Companies of sharpshooters picked off the gunners and the Mexicans 
upon the roofs of the buildings. At last the gate of the great yard gave 
wav, and the assailants rushed in, continuing the fight hand-to-hand 
within the court. A large part of the very best of the American force 
were slain and the IMexicans were killed in great numbers, the survivors 
finally retreating to the castle of Chapultepec. The fire was still kept 
up from Casa IMata, and the Americans approached in the very teeth of 
the fire, bringing the whole of their artillery to bear upon the walls, 
forcing the Mexicans to abandon the building. Worth had secured 
these buildings at a terrible cost, as seven hundred and eighty, out of 
three thousand five hundred of his troops, had fallen, but in obedience to 
Scott's positive orders, they were abandoned to the Mexicans, 

Later, however, in a council of war, it was determined that the castle 
of Chapultepec must be reduced before the city could be taken. This 
castle stands upon a great rock a hundred and fifty feet high. The 
northern and southern sides of this rock are absolutely inaccessible, and 
the eastern and a portion of the western nearly so. It is possible to 
scale the southwestern and western sides. A battery stood in the angle 
of the long zig-zag road which formed the regular approach to the 
castle. Strong fortifications were placed upon the rock, and around 
were ditches, aqueducts and walls. The IMolino del Rey was upon the 
western side, and u])on the east two great causeways led into the city 
of Mexico. Two thousand men, with thirteen heavy guns, defended 
the place. The Americans tried to reduce it by artillery fire alone, but 
finding this impossible, a party seized the ]\Iolino and occupied it. From 
here, on the 13th of September, fire was opened upon the castle, and a 
little later infantry were sent out to advance along the grounds of the 
great enclosure which extends west of the castle. This western slope 
was perforated with mines, but the INIexican officer who came out to 



THE SAD PLAIN OF MONTEREY. 447 

explode them was shot down, and the assailants went on to the crest of 
the hill. This crest, however, they could not climb, and as they had no 
scaling ladders at hand, they took refuge in the crevices of the rocks, 
and picked off the Mexicans at the guns. A large number of the 
Mexicans were letting themselves down the perpendicular rock on the 
eastern side, and a force was sent around to intercept them, and cut off 
their retreat. When the scaling ladders arrived, the force upon the 
west scaled the walls in the midst of a terrible fire and gained the para- 
pet. They then walked across the ditch upon the ladders. Meanwhile, 
another party had climbed up the southern slope and entered at the great 
gate. The enemy gave way everywhere and the Americans took 
possession of the castle. Then they pushed on after the flying enemy 
into the city, but when they reached the citadel where Santa Anna 
commanded, they were met with a fire so dreadful that further advance 
was simply impossible. However, the Americans gained possession of 
numerous buildings and dragged their howitzers to the roofs where they 
did destructive work upon the Mexicans below. Night fell with 
Americans in the city, but the citadel was still unconquered. The 
Mexicans held a council of war and decided to withdraw their anny 
from the city, liberate the convicts in the prison, arm them, and 
urge the inhabitants of the city to fight with them from the house 
tops. The army was therefore drawn out of the city in the night, 
and when morning dawned gangs of convicts, deserters, robbers and 
thieves took the place of the soldiers, fighting with paving stones which 
had been carried by the thousands to the house-tops in the night. 
The American artillery was turned upon these houses and the desperate 
people soon submitted. By the 15th of September, 1848, the city 
was quiet and in possession of the Americans. Then came the treaty 
which ended the war, and gave to the United States not only Texas, 
but New Mexico, California and Arizona. 

This year General Taylor, candidate of the Democratic party, was 
elected President by a large majority over Charles Francis Adams, the 
nominee of the Free-Soil party. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Major Ripley's "History of the Mexican War." 
Fremont's "Memoirs." 
Scott's "Autobiography." 
Fiction — J. R. Lowell's "Bigelow Papers." 
J. Clement's "Bernard Lisle." 
"Talbot and Vernon." Anon. 
C. L. Hentz's "The Planter's Northern Bride." 
C. L. Hentz's "Eoline." 
C. L. Hentz's "Marcus Warland." 
Poetry— Charles F. Hoffman's "Monterey." 
J. G. Lyon's "Hero of Monterey." - 
Albert Pike's "Buena Vista." 
Whittier's "Angels of Buena Vi.sta." 



CHAPTER LXXXIII. 



Inib nnh %vnn §}^nm. 



DEATH OF TAYLOR, AND ADMINISTRATION OF MILLARD FILLMORE- 
DISCOVERY OF GOLD IN CALIFORNIA — SLAVERY 
AGITATION — THE TROUBLE 
IN KANSAS. 



R. TAYLOR lived but one year after he was 
elected President, and Vice-President Millard 
Fillmore, of New York, became President for 
the remainder of that term — 1850 to 1853. Dur- 
ing Taylor's administration gold was discovered 
in California. It is most surprising that it had 
never been discovered before, and that it should be 
discovered now quite by accident. It was found in a 
little mill-stream running from the Sierra Nevada, and 
caused such excitement that all efforts to keep it 
secret necessarily failed. A great tide of emigration 
set in upon California, not from the Eastern States 
alone, but from all parts of the world. Great wagon 
trains crossed the desolate plains and the snowy passes 
of the Rocky Mountains to the land of gold. INIany 
gold-seekers went away around Cape Horn, and yet others ventured 
across the Isthmus of Panama. So rapidly did the population increase 
that it was not long before the Territory applied to the Union for admis- 
sion as a State. In the State constitution which was formed, slavery 
was prohibited forever. President Taylor was a Southern man with 
slave-holding principles, but he was one who earnestly desired to pre- 
serve the union of the States, and in readily granting this constitution 
to California he hoped that the anti-slavery agitation might be quieted, 
and the country saved from the conflict to which even the dullest could 
see it was inevitably drifting. 

The Free-Soil party was rapidly gaining strength. Northern Sena- 





HEXRY CLAY. 



GOLD AND IRON CHAINS. 449 

tors presented resolutions, whenever there was an opportunity, for the 
prohibition of slavery in the new Territories, but none of these bills 
were carried. Mr, Clay, who twice before in the clash of sectional 
opinions had offered compromises which temporarily allayed the storm, 
tried once more to act as conciliator. Kentucky was making a new 
constitution, and Clay suggested that there should be a gradual eman- 
cipation of the slaves in that State, and that as they were made free 
they should be colonized in Africa. But though Clay had been the 
cherished idol of the Kentucky people, they could not endure this reso- 
lution, and he was deserted by the "Fire-eaters," as the slave-holding 
extremists were now called. Daniel Webster, whom the North had 
always considered one of its warmest and most eloquent supporters, was 
guilty at this time of a change of opinion. He supported the compro- 
mises of Mr. Clay, perhaps with the hope that he might gain Southern 
favor — for it miist be clearly understood that Mr. Clay's compromises 
had for their end the quieting of the Northern conscience. It was 
hoped that these concessions to Northern prejudice would secure the 
Southern States from further interference. Daniel Webster's attitude 
was that the Union would be disbanded if the slave-holders were not 
allowed to have their way. He believed in the preservation of the 
Union, even at the price of the continuance of slaver}'. Mr. Calhoun, 
the third great statesman of that period, was dying, and his influence 
could no longer be used to uphold the policy of the South. 

When Mr. Fillmore took the presidential chair left vacant by the 
death of Taylor, Mr. Webster was taken into the Cabinet as Secretary 
of State, and the North knew that it could hope for but little from the 
Administration. He accepted and signed the compromise without 
hesitation, and the beginning of his administration is noted for the 
passage of the fugitive slave law. This gave the owners of slaves per- 
mission to recapture their escaped slaves in any part of the free States, 
and to carry them back without trial by jury. That the slave-holders 
might meet with no hindrance or annoyance, commissioners were 
appointed throughout the country who were to decide upon all questions 
of capture. If they decided that the slave was the property of the man 
who claimed him, their fees were twice what they were if they decided 
otherwise. This law was received in the North with horrified indigna- 
tion. Since every citizen was obliged to prescribe to it, many men 
refused to take the oath of citizenship or to vote. Others already bound 
protested that right was greater than law, and that they should simply 
disregard the enactment. It was a matter in which few could be 



450 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

passive. Ever}' citizen in the free States was considered as under obliga- 
tions to capture and return to their masters any negroes found within 
their territory. The alarm among the colored people was intense. 
The free negroes knew that there was no legal protection left them, 
and that any of them at any time might be seized and returned to 
slavery. They had not dared to count on the strong wave of sympathy 
which swept the North. A few years before, to be an Abolitionist was 
to be despised, persecuted, almost outlawed. But now the question was 
shown to the public in a different light. The Southern States had 
disregarded Northern wishes, and it occurred to the North that the 
gospel of State Rights might not apply alone to the States of the 
South. It had always been urged in the support of slavery; why was 
it not possible to urge it for the protection of liberty? It was therefore 
determined by private opinion that the Northern States would do as 
they pleased about rendering up fugitive slaves. But it was the masses 
who decided this. The prominent men, with the ministers at their 
head, protested that the law must be obeyed, and begged the people 
not to disturb commercial prosperity by any ill-advised sentiment- 
alism. 

When attempts were made to capture fugitive slaves, the slave- 
hunters found that the>- met with unexpected obstacles. The people of 
the villages aroused to defend the slaves with arms, not alone from 
impulses of humanity, but to protect what the)' deemed their constitu- 
tional right. The tables were turned upon the South. State sov- 
ereignty put on a new aspect. Not unfrequently slaves were snatched 
from the court-room and carried away by their friends of the Free-Soil 
party. But government, whether State or municipal, had no sympathy 
with these demonstrations. 

Boston showed that she intended to have the obnoxious law obeyed. 
An attempt was made to rescue Antony Burns, a fugitive slave, 
from the court house. The attack was repelled and one man was 
killed. The city called out the militia and the marshal joined to these 
all the United States troops in the vicinity. Antony Burns, a dejected 
frightened negro, was given back to his master with as much militar>' 
pomp as might have celebrated the victory of a conqueror. More than 
one hundred civil officers of Boston, with the poor fugitive in their 
midst, marched out of the court house in a solid square formed by 
United States marines and a company of artillery. But this repre- 
sented only the authorit)- of the law. In the hearts of the people who 
watched the poor slave as he was taken in the midst of this display to 



GOLD AND IRON CHAINS. 45 1 

Long Wharf, there smouldered the protest which makes righteous revo- 
hition so much higher than law. No doubt this pitiable rendition of 
Antony Burns was a good thing for Massachusetts, for now throughout 
the State there was a righteous anger, as intense as that which ani- 
mated her when she fought for her own liberty three-quarters of a 
centur}^ before. There, and indeed throughout the North, when law 
failed, force was resorted to, and the slaves were rescued. When it 
became necessary for the slaves to fight in their own defense, arms were 
put into their hands. In some States the use of prisons, and the ser- 
vices of State officers in the arrest of fugitives, were forbidden by State 
legislation. The South saw that it had gone too far. 

Otherwise the administration was not without benefit. Postage was 
reduced, the agricultural bureau established, the Pacific Railroad begun, 
and the enlargement of the Capitol started. Those negotiations which 
opened up Japan to the world were begun. As the time for the election 
of a new President drew near, the Congressional members for thirty- 
three States pledged themselves not to support any man for the presi- 
dency not opposed to the renewal of the agitation of slaver}^ John 
Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire, was the Democratic candidate. 
The Whigs held three conventions and nominated for President John 
Parker Hale, of New Hampshire. The Democrats were successful, and 
Pierce entered the presidency, pledging himself to do all in his power 
to preserve silence upon the question of slavery. But he had not been 
in office six weeks when the agitation was renewed as bitterly as ever 
by the efforts of the friends of slavery to overthrow the Missouri Com- 
promise. This, it will be remembered, passed in 1820, and prohibited 
slavery north of a certain line of that great domain which had been 
bought under the name of Louisiana. It was now proposed to organize, 
out of that region from which slavery had been thus excluded, two new 
Territories, to be named Kansas and Nebraska. The inhabitants of 
these were to have the right to determine for themselves whether they 
should establish slavery or freedom — "squatter sovereignty," an epi- 
grammatic Senator termed it. This bill passed May 30, 1854, and 
through the North it awakened an indignation as intense as if a part of 
the Constitution had been repealed. An invisible line seemed to divide 
the section between free labor and slavery, and to break over this line 
seemed treason and sacrilege. The "Northern conscience," of which 
the South had been so afraid, was aroused at last. The "religious 
liberty" at which the South sneered was the foundation of their resent- 
ment. 



452 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

The Northwest crowded the new Territories with settlers. The 
Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company was formed, holding a capital of 
five million dollars, and this company took five hundred New England 
emigrants into Kansas. The slave-holding element of ISIissouri was 
alarmed. They could easily see that Kansas was likely to become a 
free-labor State beyond the power of legislature to hinder. It was not 
easy for a slave-holder to prepare a plantation and move his army of 
negroes into the doubtful Territory. But the men of the North and 
the West, adaptable, industrious and enterprising, seized the oppor- 
tunity to settle upon fertile lands, which could be had for nothing, or 
next to it, with avidity. But whenever a party reached the line which 
divides Missouri from Kansas, they were met with strong opposition by 
the reckless and brutal men of that region, known as "Border Rufiians." 
These tried in vain to check the stream of emigration. Meetings of men 
in the slave interest were held in Missouri, in which they pledged them- 
selves to remove any and all emigrants who should go to Kansas under 
the auspices of the emigrant aid societies, and the frequent outrages 
on the Missouri line testified how ambitious they were to keep their 
word. W. H. Reeder, of Pennsylvania, was appointed Governor of the 
Territory, and arrived in Kansas in October, 1854. Most of the emi- 
grants settled at Lawrence, or near there, for the reason that the title of 
the land there was clear, whereas at that time much of the Kansas 
territory had a doubtful title, as the Indians had not yet given up their 
claims to the land. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

Fiction— R. Hildreth's "White Slave." 
Holt's "Abraham Page." 
J. Hungerford's "The Old Plantation." 
J. H. Ingraham's "Sunny South." 
Mrs. Jeffrey's "Woodburn." 
M. Lennox's "Ante-Bellum." 
Logan's "The Master's House." 
M. J. Mcintosh's "The Lofty and the Lowly." 
Miss Palfrey's "Herman." 
Mrs. Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin." 
G. W. Peck's "Aurifodina." 
W. W. Brown's "Clatella." 
Mrs. Cross' "Azile." 
W. Adams' "The Sable Cloud." 
W. F. Adams' "Hatchie." 



CHAPTER LXXXIV. 

¥]^a Irull^ §00$ ilHrtl^titg ®n. 

SACKING OF LAWRENCE — ^JOHN BROWN AND THE DESTRUCTION OF 

OSSAWOTTOMIE — ELECTION OF BUCHANAN — ASSAULT ON 

SUMNER — ^THE MORMONS — ELECTION OF LINCOLN. 




MORMON TEMPLE. 



S soon as Kansas ventured 
to prepare for an election, 
an army of Missourians 
invaded her territor}' and cast 
votes for the candidate of the 
slave-holding interest. More bal- 
lots, indeed, were cast for the 
Democratic ticket than there 
were voters in the State. As 
the governor would not counte- 
nance these outrages, he was 
removed, and a man who could 
be depended upon to wink at 



45'1 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

coercion was put in his place. The inhabitants of Kansas called 
a convention and prepared a constitution for themselves. To keep 
this from going into operation the militia were called out, and a 
military company from South Carolina invaded the State, pledged to 
war. Lawrence was sacked, and some of its principal buildings 
burned. A civil war between the two parties followed. ]^Iany lives 
were lost on both sides, and Kansas acquired the melancholy nickname 
of "Bleeding Kansas." The influence of the administration at Wash- 
ington was against the Free State party, and the United States troops 
were used for such purposes as dispersing the legislature and arresting 
the leaders of the Free State party. Yet another Governor was 
appointed, and under his administration an army from Missouri entered 
the Territory, and destroyed the village of Ossawottomie. This was 
the home of a peculiar man named John Brown. He was absent at 
this time, in pursuit of a party of border ruffians who had recently 
killed one of his sons, and who at that time had two others in chains. 
Brown returned to find his home destroyed, and to lay out, in his 
simple, passionate way, a plan which, in its failure, cost him his life. 

In the beginning of 1857 ^^^^ Kansas legislature met once more, but 
the prominent members were arrested by the United States marshal, leav- 
ing both houses without a quorum. But the bitter struggle came to an 
end after a time. The Free State men conquered, and the attempt to 
force slavery- into the Territory was given up. A constitution prohibiting 
slavery in Kansas was made in 1852, and Charles Robinson was the 
first Governor chosen. Two years before this, Franklin Pierce, "who 
had come in with little opposition, and gone out with none," had given 
place to James Buchanan, of Pennsylvania. 

At the time of Buchanan's election the countr}' was in a political 
ferment. A party called the "Know Nothing Party" had been 
organized in New York, and its ranks were rapidly swelled. Its avowed 
purpose was to check foreign influence, especially the influence of the 
Pope, purify the ballot, and maintain the use of the Bible in public 
schools. The organization was a secret one, and, no doubt, had purposes 
which it did not confide to the world. It was called the Know Nothing 
party, because it was the habit of the members to say that they knew 
nothing of the proceedings or intentions- of tlie society. In the midst 
of the greatest confusion of opinion and of the bitterest discussion in 
Congress, Buchanan came to the presidency as the candidate of the 
Democratic party. A little later, the Senate was disgraced by one of 
the most shocking occurrences of those troublous times. Charles 




1^/ cLO^hyC^r"^^ 



THE TRUTH GOES MARCHING ON. 455 

Sumner, Senator from Massachusetts, delivered on two days a speech 
which he called, when published, the "Crime Against Kansas. " It was 
replied to by four different Senators, who, prompted by the bitterness 
and insolence which the time seemed to provoke in all, used expressions 
and indulged in abuse of which the Senate chamber had previously been 
guiltless. Mr. Sumner retaliated with indignation and even fierceness. 
Two days later, after the Senate adjourned, and he was sitting at his 
desk writing, Preston S. Brooks, a representative from South Carolina, 
approached him and said: "I have read your speech twice over care- 
fully; it is a libel on South Carolina." He hit ]\Ir. Sumner over the 
head with a heavy stick till he fell to the floor bleeding. For four years 
the State of Massachusetts was represented by his empty chair, while he 
was in Europe trying to recover his health. The act itself might have 
passed simply as the attack of a brutal man, and been thought no more of, 
but for the reason that the House and Senate sympathized largely with 
the assailant. Brooks, with an insolent speech, resigned from the House, 
but was returned at once by his constituents and received the congratu- 
lations of many. He died soon after, and an eulogy was pronounced 
upon him in the House. This showed plainly to the Liberty party of 
the North the trend which affairs were taking, and helped to swell the 
tide of resistance to Southern rule. Mr. Buchanan was another of 
those men who, though born in the North, were willing to sustain the 
Southern policy. His first message assured the countr}' that the discus- 
sion of slavery had come to an end. 

Following close upon this address came the decision of Judge Taney 
in the Dred Scott case. Scott claimed that he had been removed from 
Missouri to Illinois in 1834, and taken into territory north of the 
compromise line; that in 1838 he had been taken back into Missouri and 
sold again to his present master. He protested that he and his children 
were free, but his master maintained that Scott, being a negro, was not 
a citizen of Missouri and could not bring an action. The lower courts 
differed, and the case was brought before the United States Court. Here 
it was twice argued, and Chief Justice Taney gave it as the decision of 
the court, that the black men could not be citizens; that they could only 
be treated as propert}', and that they had no right which the white man 
was bound to respect. The most conservative in the North were 
startled by this decision into a radicalism which they had not before 
thought themselves capable of 

In the midst of these troubles a wave of great financial depression 
swept over the country. Commerce and enterprise had been developing 



456 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

at an abnormal rate, and the system of credit had been perilously wide. 
The prosperity proved to be an apple of Sodom, which, when crushed, 
gave out only a puff of dust. 

In this same year the Mormons in Utah took such a defiant attitude 
that the President removed their Governor, Brigham Young, who was 
also the prophet of their church, and appointed a Gentile. This plan 
has always been followed since, and their Territor}' has been kept from 
entering the Union for the reason that with them Church and State are 
synonymous, and the laws of their church are radically opposed in some 
particulars to the laws of the United States — notabl}' those in regard to 
marriage. The summer of this year was marked by the first telegraphic 
message which ever passed from America to Europe. This cable was 
laid by private enterprise, and neither the Governments of England or 
America can take any credit to themselves. 

In the summer of 1858 John Brown came into prominence. Every 
few years there arises somewhere in the world a man whom criticism 
calls a fanatic and whom posterity recognizes as a martyr. In truth. 
Brown was both. The contending theories of politicians, the tedious 
delays of the law and of Government and the shameless procrastination 
which was shown by the Administration, lashed him into resistance. He 
was of Puritan blood, and had in him the Puritan devotion to duty and 
principle. He had seen the suffering of the people of Kansas, who 
were laboring for freedom, and had himself suffered from the outrages 
of the border ruffians. One son had been killed and another driven 
insane by these men, and he meant to devote his life to aid, so far as he 
could, the extermination of slavery and the punishment of the slave- 
holder. Like many another reformer a strain of madness mingled with 
his devotion. He believed that he was God's messenger. Early in the 
year he had called together in Canada a quiet convention of the ' 'True 
Friends of Freedom," and had prepared a provisional constitution for the 
people of the United States. He had been well acquainted in his youth 
with the mountains of Virginia, and it seemed to him that they were 
made to be the stronghold of an army — an idea which Washington had 
held before him. His plan was now to get the slaves to join him; to 
retreat to these mountains and hold them until the slaves from all over 
the land flocked to his standard and let him lead them to liberty. George 
E. Stearns secured him arms and gave him four hundred dollars. Brown 
went to Maryland and established himself at Harper's Ferry. On the i6th 
of October, 1859, he took possession of the United States Armory and 
buildings at Harper's Ferry, stopped railroad trains, and held the town 



THE TRUTH GOES GOES MARCHING ON. 457 

with a force of fourteen white men and four negroes. He would doubt- 
less have escaped had he not been too considerate of the feelings of the 
families of the men whom he kept as hostages. On their account he 
delayed, and United States troops, under the command of Colonel 
Robert E. Lee, soon surrounded his little force and compelled it to 
retire to the engine house. Here Brown's band fought desperately. 
Thirteen of them were killed or mortally wounded, and among them 
two of Brown's sons. He defied danger with perfect coolness, and one 
of his prisoners describes him as feeling the pulse of his dying son with 
one hand, and holding his rifle with the other, all the while encourag- 
ing his men. After his capture he was put on trial before a Virginian 
court, and behaved with such fortitude, self-forgetfulness and dignity 
that even his enemies admired him. He was condemned and handed 
December 2, 1859, at Charleston, Virginia, stopping on the way to the 
scaffold to kiss a little slave child. Six of his comrades were hung the 
next day. A few others, who had been on duty outside of the town at 
the time of Brown's capture, escaped to the mountains and thence to 
the free States. 

The South was in a ferment. It was generally understood that 
should the Republicans succeed in electing their candidate in the next 
campaign, that it would be the signal for secession. At this campaign 
there were in the field the Democratic party, the advocates of secession, 
the Constitutional Union National party — made up of the remnants of 
the old Whig and American parties, who hoped both to avoid war and 
preserve the Union — and the Republican party. Abraham Lincoln was 
the candidate of the last named party, and he was elected by the largest 
popular vote ever given for any President, Very glad was Mr. Buchanan 
to resign his place to some one who would take the responsibility of 
meeting the great questions of the hour. Mr. Lincoln was a man of 
very moderate opinions in regard to slavery, and he said often in public 
speeches, that he did not approve of abolishing slavery in the States 
where it was already established by law. But notwithstanding this, his 
election was looked on as very dangerous for the slave States, and his 
inauguration was the signal for disunion. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
Biography — Nickolay and Hay's "Life of I,incoln." 

Drew's "John Brown's Invasion." 
Fiction — J. W. De Forest's "Kate Beaumont." 

Mrs. Dupuy's "The Planter's Daughter." 

J. R. Gilmore's "Among the Pines." 

J. R. Hatermann's "Dead Men's Shoes." 

S. J. Hale's "Northwood." 
Poetry — Phoebe Carj''s "John Brown." 

E. C. Stedman's "Ossawattomie Brown." 

Edna D. Proctor's "The Virginia Scaffold." 



CHAPTER LXXXV. 



4i 



W[t J[r0 ioming, %}i\\^u J^brHJ^nm/' 



SECESSION — THE SOUTHERN CONFEDERACY — ATTACK ON FORT. SUMP- 
TER — THE FIRST CALL FOR TROOPS — THE THREE YEARS' 
\ C\ ENLISTMENT — THE BATTLE 

OF BULL RUN. 



ECESSION was begun before President Buchanan's 
term had expired. It is putting it mildly to say 
that the Secessionists were confident. To begin 
with, they believed that since they were ready to 
adopt a free-trade policy, they could rely upon 
help from England. They also believed that a 
Southern man would be much more than a match for 
a Northern one in war, and it was quite true that the 
Southern men were used to arms and to horses and 
that Northern men, as a class, were used to neither. 
They also counted upon the fact that they would be 
acting upon the defensive, and would have all the 
advantages which such a mode of warfare entails. 
Many of them united to form a large secret society and 
called themselves the Knights of the Golden Circle, The members 
were numerous and had much influence in all that followed. 

South Carolina took the lead in withdrawing from the Union, and 
a convention was called in that State, which, on December 20, i860, 
adopted an ordinance of secession. Within six weeks like conventions 
were held and like votes passed in the States of Mississippi, Florida, 
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas. These States then formed 
themselves into what was called the Southern Confederacy, and on 
February 8, 1861, elected Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, as President, 
and Alexander H. Stephens, of Georgia, as Vice-President. Virginia 
was reluctant for some time to vote for secession, but her wealth 
depended almost entirely upon the raising of slaves for the cotton States. 
Should the cotton States organize themselves into a successful confed- 




'we are coming, father ABRAHAM. 



459 



eracy, and Virginia be left out, it was evident that her prosperity would 
suffer, for one of the articles of the constitution of the Confederacy was 
that the seceding States should hold no commercial intercourse with 
other States. 




JEFFERSON DAVIS IN 1861. 



President Buchanan seemed to have his judgment paralyzed. He 
did, indeed, say that the States had no right to secede, but he also 
declared that the Constitution gave him no power to coerce them. 
Even w^hen the authorities in South Carolina claimed possession of all 



460 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

the national property in the State, Buchanan remained inactive. 
Major Robert Anderson, who commanded the garrison of Fort Moultrie, 
in Charleston harbor, seeing that he could expect no help from the 
Government, removed his force, on Christmas night, i860, to Fort 
Sumpter. 

The men of the South were gathered in large numbers in Charleston, 
and General G. T. Beauregard was put in command of the Confederate 
forces. His first act was to erect batteries for the destruction of Fort 
Sumpter. Anderson was not a strong Unionist, and though he did 
his duty — or partly did it — his heart was not in the matter. He 
permitted the Confederates to visit his fort, and to examine all of his 
preparations. When Beauregard was ready for attack he refused all 
privileges of communication between Charleston and the fort, and 
demanded a surrender. To provision the fort, the steamer Slai- of the 
West was sent in January, 1861, but before she could reach her desti- 
nation she was driven off by the fire from the Confederate batteries. 
Mr. Lincoln had been in office one month when he sent a fleet to the 
relief of Fort Sumpter. Again General Beauregard demanded surrender. 
This was refused, and the batteries opened fire upon the fort early the 
next morning. The fire lasted for two days, and at midnight of the 
second day Major Anderson surrendered the fort. It was full of stifling 
smoke, his men were worn out, the barracks were on fire and his 
gunpowder almost gone. He was allowed to march out with the honors 
of war, and on April 14th he did so, firing his last powder away in 
saluting the United States flag with fifty guns. 

The men of both parties watched with deep interest the action of the 
various States. The Union had been swelled by three States during 
Buchanan's administration — Minnesota, Oregon and Kansas. These 
were added to the power of the North. Eight slave States, at the time 
of the fall of Sumpter, still remained in the Union; seven had gone 
out. Virginia soon joined these. Arkansas and North Carolina 
followed. Kentucky refused to secede, although she sent many men to 
the Confederate army. IVIaryland remained in the Union, although for 
some time it was thought that she would stand by the South. In the 
mountainous regions of Western North Carolina and Eastern Tennessee, 
there was a strong Union element, and the people of these counties 
asked to be separated peaceably from the rest of their respective States 
and allowed to remain in the Union. The persecution which this 
request was met with at the hands of the Secessionists drove many of 
the people from their homes. The people west of the Alleghany 



"we are coming, father ABRAHAM." 461 

Mountains, in Virginia, did, however, form a State of their own and 
remained in the Union, calling their State West Virginia, and selecting 
Wheeling as their capital. In a short time it was admitted into the 
Union. 

On the day when Sumpter fell. President Lincoln called for militia 
from the several States of the Union to the number of seventy-five 
thousand. It was met with a response quicker and more cordial than 
even he had dared to hope for. A fever of patriotism took possession 
of the North. Every village seemed draped with the national flag. 
Every man who could possibly leave his home offered his services. 
Every loyal newspaper flung a flag above its headline. The very 
stationer^' was patriotic in the tri-colors of the Republic. Many of the 
most influential Democrats now came out on the side of the Union. 
These were called War Democrats. Those who lived in the North, 
and yet reviled the Government and the policy which dictated the war, 
were named "Copperheads," after the snake of that name. In every 
village there were barracks, where the recruits were stationed until they 
could be marched off" to Washington, after a hasty drilling by some 
officer who knew almost as little as they about the tactics of war. 
Ephraim E. Ellsworth, a young man of Chicago, excited the ardent 
admiration of the recruits by displaying his excellently trained company 
of zouaves, and many were quick to follow his example. Among the 
first men to respond to the President's call were the 6th Massachusetts, 
which started within two days after the summons. When they reached 
Baltimore a great mob of Secessionists collected about them and began 
stoning them. The mob carried a Secession flag, and hurled epithets 
at the soldiers as freely as they did paving stones. Several pistol shots 
were fired from the windows, and a number of soldiers hit. The Mayor 
of the city walked at the head of the soldiers, in the hope that his 
presence would afford some protection. But as the mob grew more 
uncontrollable the Mayor seized a musket and shot one of the leaders. 
With the aid of a large number of policemen, the soldiers succeeded in 
getting through the city, and the three young militiamen that had been 
killed were sent home to their native State. After this the troops 
avoided Baltimore when possible in passing on their way to Washington. 

Excitement grew in the North. An immense meeting was held in 
New York City, and a Union Defence Committee appointed to hasten 
the equipment of troops and the furnishing of ships and money. Under 
their engagement troops were soon pouring into Washington, which 
was defended by General Winfield Scott. On the 24th of May four 



462 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 




THE CONFEDERATE FLAG. 



regiments crossed the Potomac and took possession of Arlington 
Heights, which command Washington. One regiment, recruited from 
the New York Fire Department and commanded by the gallant young 
Ellsworth, went by way of Alexandria. While passing through the 

city Ellsworth discovered 
a secession flag flying over 
the principal hotel. With 
two soldiers, he went to 
the top of the house, tore 
down the flag, and was 
returning to the street, 
when the proprietor of the 
house killed him with a 
shotgun. One of Ells- 
worth's companions retal- 



'~^^^ iated instantly by killing 
the proprietor. It was a 
dramatic incident, which appealed well to the sentiments of the young 
men of the countr}-. Ellsworth had looked ever>' inch a hero, and 
upon his death he certainly was made one. His picture was displayed 
everywhere and special regiments were formed and dedicated to the 
work of avenging his death. Another of the distinguished young men 
of the North who was killed at the very opening of the war was 
Theodore Winthrop, the young scholar and writer. He was sent on an 
unfortunate expedition against a Secession force at Big Bethel, and was 
killed there by a North Carolina drummer boy. 

The seventy-five thousand troops which President Lincoln had 
called forth were three months' men, and it soon became apparent that 
secession in the South was not to be stopped in three months, nor in 
six. On May 3, i86r, the President issued another proclamation, calling 
for forty-two thousand volunteers for three years, and authorizing the 
raising of ten new regiments for the regular ami)-. He also called for 
eighteen thousand volunteer seamen for the navy. But as the clouds 
gathered, Lincoln made a third call for men on the 4th of July, and 
Congress gave him authority to call for five hundred thousand men, and 
five hundred million dollars. The people were more than prompt in 
their response, but they over-valued the raw troops which then swarmed 
to Washington. They believed that because the men felt like fighting, 
that they knew how to do it. Every paper in the North cried, "On to 
Richmond I" The impatience for war had its effect. 



"we are coming, father ABRAHAM." 463 

General Beauregard commanded the Confederate army nearest 
Washington, and defended the river of Bull Run, occupying a line eight 
miles long, facing towards Washington. General Scott's plan was to 
launch an army against Beauregard, turn his right flank, seize the rail- 
roads in the rear of his position and defeat him. General Joseph 
Johnston had a large number of Confederates in the Shenandoah valley. 
It was most important that this army should not l:e allowed to come to 
the help of Beauregard, and General Robert Patterson was given strict 
orders to prevent such a movement. Scott intrusted the immediate 
command of this exploit to General McDowell, a graduate of West 
Point, who had seen service in the Mexican War. There was a thorough 
confidence in Washington that McDowell would win, but the optimists 
did not take into consideration the lack of discipline in the army, nor 
the spies that filled the Washington departments, and sent word of 
every plan and movement to the Confederates. A large number of 
members of Congress followed in the rear of the army to witness the 
battle. One of them, John A. Logan, of Illinois, left his seat in the 
capital, shouldered a musket and joined in the ranks. The troops were 
soon upon the banks of Bull Run, although there had been some dif- 
ficulty in getting them there, as they had a boyish way of stopping to 
pick berries or search for a drink of water as their impulses prompted. 
As they advanced, the enemy's out-posts fell back, and at Blackburn's 
Ford the Union troops met with their first opposition. The artillery 
was kept briskly going from both sides, and at last the infantry became 
engaged at this point, when both columns retreated with a loss of about 
sixty men on each side. McDowell gave up the plan of turning 
Beauregard's right flank, finding that he was very strongly intrenched 
at that point, and the two days which followed the engagement at Black- 
burn's Ford were spent in searching for a ford where a column could 
cross and protect the passage of the army. General Patterson did not 
succeed in keeping Johnston penned in the Shenandoah valley, and that 
general had joined Beauregard with a portion of his forces. McDowell 
did not know this, and crossed the stream with his force as soon as 
possible. The battle ground was a plateau thinly wooded and crossed 
by a small stream that flowed into Bull Run. The enemy were slowly 
driven back through this grove under a most destructive fire, but 
General Thomas J. Jackson and his men stood immovable upon the 
spot where they were posted, and won for General Jackson the name of 
"Stonewall." But as the Confederate line fell back, it gained higher 
ground, which placed the Union troops at a disadvantage. Jackson and 



464 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

his men fell upon the Union right, and broke the troops. A terrible 
panic followed, and the troops swarmed back toward Washington in 
mad haste. The Congressmen in their carriages, the soldiers without 
their guns, the drivers of army wagons without their wagons and 




"stonewall" JACKSON. 



clinging to the backs of their horses, rushed back together in a con- 
fusion so headlong that it would have been comical if it had not been 
tragic. The loss of the Confederates was about one thousand nine 
hundred; that of the Nationals about one thousand five hundred in 



"we are coming, father ABRAHAM." 465 

killed and wounded, and as many more in prisoners. But this victory 
was not so helpful to the Confederates as the people of the North 
imagined it would be. It disorganized the Confederate army more than 
defeat would have done, for the Southern volunteers thought that their 
cause was gained, and many of them went to their liomes. 

Later in the year there was a smaller battle at Ball's Bluff, in which 
the National troops were also unsuccessful. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Fr\''s "McDowell and Tyler at Bull Run." 

Doubleday's "Forts Sunipter and Moultrie." 
Abbot's "Blue Jackets of '61." 
Fiction — J. H. Aughey's "The Iron Furnace.'' 

Mr. Reniick's "Millicent Halford." 
Poetry — G. H. Boker's "Poems of the War." 

Mrs. Warfield's "Battle of Bull Run." 

Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymu of the Republic." 

A. G. H. Dugarme's "Bethel." 

Richard Realf .s "Apocalypse." 



CHAPTER LXXXVI. 



Ili0 ^nm "Bfivmtr. 



ATTITUDE OF FOREIGN POWERS — BOMBARDMENT OF THE FORTS AT 

HATTERAS INLET — CONQUEST OF CHARLESTON HARBOR — 

THE CAMPAIGN WEST OF THE ALLEGHANIES — GRANT 

AT FORTS HENRY AND DONELSON — THE 

^^ (3-. WAR IN MISSOURI. 

Old World the American conflict was looked 
with satisfaction. IMany were glad to see 
the Republic, which they had always 
prophesied would end in failure and confusion, was 
about to fulfill the prophesy. France, upon a 
flimsy excuse, sent an army into r^Iexico. Eng- 
land threatened war because two gentlemen, James M. 
Mason, of Virginia, and John Slidell, of Louisiana, 
wlio were sent out by the Confederate Government as 
ministers to London and Paris, were taken from an 
English ship and returned to their own country. The 
British steamer was allowed to go on, because the 
captors were not willing to cause inconvenience to inno- 
cent persons. England demanded an apology and the 
return of the two men taken from her steamer. The Secretary 
of State, William 11. Seward, sent a masterly letter to Eng- 
land, whicli, while it offered no apology, and, indeed, defended the 
capture of the ministers, nevertheless satisfied the English nation and 
averted war. Tlie commissioners were released and allowed to sail for 
England, but their purpo.se had been practically thwarted. England 
continued, however, to sympathize with the insurgents. Her leading 
journals congratulated the vSouthcrncrs upon their courage in upholding 
their rights. The Russian (iovcrnmcnt alone was friendly to the United 
States. 




THE UNION FOREVER. 467 

The Presidents who preceded Lincoln and the Cabinets which 
sustained them had systematically closed their ears and eyes to all that 
promised war, and now that the United States found itself confronted 
with the probabilities of a long conflict, she was poorly prepared. Her 
vessels were for the most part in foreign waters, and it was many months 
before news could reach them and bring them home. Only twelve 
vessels were in port — four in Northern and eight in Southern ports. 
Three hundred of the navy who had been educated for services in the 
United States went over to the Confederacy, as did a large number of 
those educated at West Point for the army — among them some of the 
best generals of the war. To establish itself on the seas, the Govern- 
ment bought all sorts of merchant crafts, and had gunboats built as 
hastily as possible. It was necessary to get vessels in sufficient quantity 
to secure the blockade of the Southern ports, but this was never made 
so secure that blockade runners did not frequently defy it. The Con- 
federate Government enacted a law providing that a portion of every 
cargo brought into its ports must consist of arms and ammunition. 
Thus the Southern soldier was always well supplied with the best 
weapons which English arsenals could produce. The Confederates sent 
out cotton, tobacco and rice in payment for these. To shut off this 
trade was the ambition of the Federal Government. To do this, it was 
necessary to sustain a complete blockade of Southern ports. An expedi- 
tion was fitted out at Hampton Roads, commanded by Flag-officer Silas 
H. Stringham. It numbered ten vessels and carried one hundred and 
fifty-eight guns. Two of these vessels were transport steamers having 
on board nine hundred troops, commanded by General Benjamin F. 
Butler. It sailed on the 26th of August, 1861, with sealed orders, and 
arrived at its destination, Hatteras Inlet, before sunset, anchoring ofi" 
the bar. Early in the morning an attempt was made to land the troops, 
but the surf was so heavy that the powder was damaged and the lives 
of the men endangered, and only about one-third of the troops were 
landed. Two forts had been erected to protect Hatteras Inlet, and the 
project was to capture them. They were garrisoned by about six hun- 
dred men, but were not very strongly built. The troops that landed 
took possession of the smaller work, and the fleet bombarded the larger 
one. At the end of three hours the larger fort surrendered, and in the 
meantime the smaller one had been taken possession of without difficulty. 
Seven hundred prisoners were taken and sent to New York. Not a 
man was lost among the Federal forces. Garrisons were left to protect 
the place, and a coaling station was established for the blockading fleet. 



468 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

By the last of October a much larger expedition sailed from Hamp- 
ton Roads. It consisted of more than fifty vessels, and was commanded 
by Flag-officer Samuel F. Dupont. It had not long been out when it 
was scattered by a terrible gale. One transport vessel was completelv 
wrecked; one threw over her battery and another her cargo, and one 
store ship was lost. It was some time before the fleet got together 
again. Then it was joined by some frigates which were blockading 
Charleston harbor, and all sailed for Port Royal, arriving on the 5th and 
6th of November. The entrance to the harbor was protected by two 
earthworks. Fort Walker and Fort Beauregard. On the 7th of Novem- 
ber the order of battle was formed. The fleet steamed steadily by Fort 
Walker, pouring shells and rifle shot into it. The fort made a gallant 
defence, but could not prevent the ships from turning and steaming out 
again, delivering a yet hotter fire. Three times the boats passed and 
repassed the fort; then the Bienbclle sailed yet closer and delivered afire 
that dismounted several guns, and worked dreadful destruction in the 
fort. The gunboats were sweeping it with their fire, and at last the 
troops were seen pouring out of the fort in a panic. The Federalists 
sent a flag of truce on shore, but no one remained in the fort to receive 
it and the national colors were raised. The troops were then debarked 
and put in possession of both forts, repairing and strengthening the 
works. Thus the Government obtained a permanent foothold on the 
soil of South Carolina. 

West of the mountains, the year 1862 opened with some lively work. 
A large Confederate force of Kentuckians had gathered at Paintville. 
These were attacked by Colonel James A. Garfield, in command of one 
thousand eight hundred infantry and three hundred cavalry. They 
were driven out of Paintville and finally forced into another engage- 
ment. At last they retreated in the night, leaving their dead on the 
field. A few months before this there had been an engagement west 
of the mountains in which the loss was greater. This was called the 
battle of Mill Springs, and was fought at the head of steamboat naviga- 
tion on the Cumberland. General George H. Thomas was in command 
of the Federalists, and General George B. Crittenden was in command 
of the Confederates, The battle began early on the morning of January 
19, 1862. It was fiercely fought through the day, and by night the 
Confederates took refuge in their intrenchments. In the morning they 
managed to cross the Cumberland, leaving their wounded, horses, 
mules, wagons and some of their guns behind them. Two Confederate 
regiments disbanded and scattered to their homes, for the men, being 



THR UNION FOREVER. ' 469 

new to war, were easily discouraged. Thomas received the thanks of 




the President for his victory. The Confederates lost nearly tv/ice as 



470 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

many in killed and wounded as the Federals. The progress of the 
conflict at the West had so far been quite encouraging to the Union 
sympathizers. 

When General Henry W. Halleck was placed in command of the 
Department of the Missouri, in November, 1861, he divided it into 
districts, giving to General Ulysses S. Grant the district of Cairo, which 
included Southern Illinois, the counties of Missouri south of Cape 
Girardeau, and all of Kentucky that lie west of the Cumberland river. 
The Cumberland and the Tennessee rivers are about ten miles apart 
where they enter Tennessee, and here, to command them, the Confed- 
erates placed two forts — Fort Henry, on the east bank of the Tennessee, 
and Fort Jefferson, on the west bank of the Cumberland. They had 
also fortified the high bluffs at Columbus, on the Mississippi, twenty 
miles below the mouth of the Ohio, and Bowling Green, on the Big 
Barren. General Grant asked permission to capture Fort Henry, and 
after considerable delay Halleck gave his consent. This fort was gar- 
risoned by three thousand men, under General Lloyd Tilghman. It was 
not a strong work, bags of sand being largely used instead of solid 
earth embankment, but its position was fortunate. About it were 
ravines, through which little streamlets reached the river, and these 
were filled with timber and rifle pits. On the land side lay low, 
swampy ground. A fleet of iron-clad gunboats had been prepared by 
the United States Government for service on the western rivers, and on 
the morning of February 2, 1862, a fleet of four iron-clad and two 
wooden gunboats, commanded by Flag-oflRcer Andrew H Foote, 
steamed up the Tennessee until it was within sight of the fort. When 
it was within six hundred yards, a bombardment was opened, to which 
the guns of the fort promptly replied. The fire was kept up for an hour, 
and one of the boats, the Essex^ received a shot in her boiler, by which 
many men were scalded or wounded. The heavy fire from the gun- 
boats had telling effect upon the fort. The flag-staff was brought down, 
seven guns dismounted, and the sand-bags knocked out of place. At 
last a rifle gun in the fort burst. All but about one hundred of the 
garrison fled, and General Tilghman was left with a single company of 
artillerists. He served a gun with his own hands as long as possible 
and then surrendered. 

The Confederates, fearing that Fort Donelson would be the next 
point of attack, withdrew their force from Bowling Green, and joined it 
to that in Fort Donelson. National troops immediately took pos- 
session of Bowling Green and General Grant laid siege to Fort Donel- 



THE UNION FOREVER. 



471 



son. This fort was on high ground, and enclosed one hundred acres. 
The land side was protected by slashed timber and rifle-pits, and there 
was a strong water battery on the lower river front. Within the fort 




were twenty thousand men, commanded by General John B. Floyd. 
On February 12th Grant chose his positions around Fort Donelson and 
the next morning opened fire. After both sides had used their artillery 



472 THE STORY OK AMERICA. 

for some time, an attempt was made to storm the works, which was 
unsuccessful. A dismal storm of sleet and snow set in. The gunboats 
and the troops with them had not yet arrived to Grant's assistance, and 
his men were obliged to sleep that night in the storm with the scantiest 
rations. Next morning the gunboats appeared, landed the troops and 
supplies, and then moved up to attack the water batteries. The fight 
that followed was a desperate one. The defense of the fort was man- 
aged with skill and bravery and the gunboats suffered terribly. At last 
the boats were so torn and weakened that they were obliged to drop 
down the stream out of the fight. At a council of war held within the 
fort that night it was decided to attack the besiegers in the morning 
with the entire force, and daylight had barely broken when the fighting 
was begun. It soon extended all along the line. The right wing of 
the National army w^as borne back, and the Confederate cavalry tried 
to gain their rear. Grant waited, with his usual calmness, until 
the attack was at its height. He then ordered a sudden counter-attack, 
and Generals Lew Wallace and C. F. Smith dashed forward, swept the 
works with their field guns, drove out the defenders, and took possession 
of the ground which they had previously lost. The night which fol- 
lowed was a bitter one, and the wounded could be but poorly cared for. 
A large number of the men within the fort took advantage of the dark- 
ness to hasten up the river to Nashville. In the morning a white flag- 
was hung out, and a letter sent to Grant asking that commissioners be 
appointed to arrange terms of capitulation. Grant's reply was: "No 
terms other than an unconditional and immediate surrender can be 
accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works." The 
commander of the fort surrendered, and Grant's decisive and imperturb- 
able words gave a feeling of securit}- to the whole North. The people 
felt that there was at least one general in the field who accepted no 
compromises; who knew what he wanted and how to get it. The 
long artificial line of defence from the mountains to the IMississippi was 
now swept awa}-. 

In Missouri, there had been, since the very first opening of the war, 
a continual warfare. It was kept up between half-organized bodies of 
men who met by chance, and frequently dispersed after the encounter. 
Colonel James A. ^Mulligan held Lexington gallantly against the Con- 
federates there in the autunni of iS6i, and Halleck's men did some 
good work later in capturing newly-recruited Confederate regiments. 
A large number of these, under General \'an Dorn, were in the north- 
western part of Arkansas. Some of the Union troops crossed the line 



THE UNION FOREVER. 473 

into Arkansas, chose a strong place on Pea Ridge, in the Ozark Moun- 
tains, and awaited attack. On March 8, 1862, Van Dorn moved to 
attack the Union troops, which were formed in a line on the bluffs 
along the creek facing southward. The battle lasted all day with heavy 
loss, but without much change of position, and on the following day it 
was renewed, and the Confederates finally put to rout. The Union loss 
was over thirteen hundred, the Confederate loss unknown. The nature 
of the ground was such that pursuit of Van Dorn' s forces was impos- 
sible. A large number of Cherokee Indians had been engaged upon 
the side of the Confederates, but they could not stand the artillery, and, 
contenting themselves with a few scalps, hurried from the field. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History — Nickolay's "Outbreak of the Rebellion." 

Glazier's "Battles for the Union." 

Headley's "Grant and Sherman." 
Fiction — W. Bradshaw's "Angel of the Battle Field." 

E. Z. C. Judson's "Rattlesnake." 

E. Z. C. Judson's "Sardis." 
Poetry — H. H. Brownell's "War Lyrics." 

"Capture of Fort Donelson." 



CHAPTER LXXXVII. 



Hn 



it ^Ipll 



THE CAPTURE OF NEW ORLEANS — FIGHT BETWEEN THE "MONITOR" 

AND THE "MERRIMAC." 



HE largest city in the territory of the Confederates 
was New Orleans. In i860, it had a population 
of nearly one hundred and seventy thousand. In 
that same year it shipped twenty-five million 
dollars' worth of sugar, and ninety-two million 
dollars' worth of cotton. Moreover, it commanded 
the Mississippi, and it was easy to see that the possession 
of it would strike a great blow at the Confederacy, and 
shut off, or at least make it difficult to bring, supplies 
from Texas and Arkansas to feed the armies in Tennessee 
and Virginia. Between the sea and New Orleans were 
two forts. The smaller — Fort St. Philip — was on the 
left bank of the river, and was built of earth and brick, 
with its guns in plain sight on the top. The other — 
Fort Jackson — on the right bank, mounted seventy-five 
guns, fourteen of which were in bomb-proof casemates. The forts were 
garrisoned by about fifteen hundred men, commanded by General 
Johnson K. Duncan. A fleet of fifteen vessels, including an iron-clad 
ram, and a large floating batter}-, covered with railroad iron, protected 
them. Just below the forts a heavy chain was stretched across the 
river, supported b>- hulks anchored at inter\'als across the stream. Two 
hundred sharpshooters were placed upon the banks to give warning to 
the forts of the approach of any foe, or pick off any seen upon the decks. 
It was thought by Admiral David D. Porter that these forts might be 
reduced by throwing enormous shells into them, which should explode 
on striking. At his suggestion, twenty-one great mortars were cast and 
mounted on as many schooners. They threw shells thirteen inches in 
diameter, weighing two hundred and eighty-five pounds. Tbe noise 




WITH SHOT AND SHELL. 475 

when they were fired was so great that the gunners were absokitely 
deafened, and platforms had to be prepared at some distance, to which 
the gunners could leap just before firing. In addition to the schooners 
which carried the mortars, were six sloops of war, sixteen gunboats and 
five other vessels, besides transports carrying fifteen thousand troops, 
commanded by General B. F. Butler. The flag-ship of the fleet was 
the Hartford^ a wooden steam sloop of war, two hundred and twenty- 
five feet long. It was the most powerful expedition that ever sailed 
under the American flag, and the man who commanded it was Captain 
David G. Farragut, who was quite unknown to the American public, 
although he was one of the oldest m^n in the navy. It was said that 
he could fill the place of any man in the fleet, and that there was no 
possible accident or contingency on shipboard which he could not cope 
with as well as any man living. 

It was late in March when the fleet went in by Pass a 1' Outre. The 
masts of the mortar schooners were trimmed off with bushes, so that 
they could not be told from the trees on shore, and were moored in the 
woods. A careful computation was made by which an effective fire 
could be sent from the mortars without the gunners seeing what 
they fired at, and, beginning on April 18, a steady bombard- 
ment was kept up for six days and nights. Six thousand shells — eight 
hundred tons of iron — were thrown in and around the forts, where they 
worked the most terrible destruction. But they did not silence the 
guns, and the forts held out bravely. In the midst of the bombard- 
ment, the Confederates sent several flatboats, loaded with dry wood, 
smeared with tar and turpentine and blazing furiously, down the stream 
among the fleet. But Farragut had anticipated this ver>^ thing, and 
had hooks prepared to tow them ashore, or take them past the fleet, 
where they could float out to sea. An attack was to be made on the 
forts in the night, and all the decks were painted white, that needed 
articles might be found with greater ease. Ever>^ spare chain was hung 
up and down the sides of the vessels, where they would protect the 
machinery- from the enemy's shot. Farragut' s plan was to run by the 
forts, injuring them as much as possible as he passed; capture the 
Confederate fleet, and hasten up the river to the city. At 3:30 o'clock 
in the morning of April 24, the fleet started. Four nights before, two 
gunboats had gone up the river and succeeded in cutting the chain 
across the river, making an opening wide enough for the fleet to pass 
through. Some of the gunboats engaged the water batter}^ of Fort 
Jackson while the fleet went by. The first division consisted of eight 



A7^ 



THE STORY OF AMKRICA. 



\essels, and was commanded by Captain Bailey, a sailor ot as much 
experience as P'arragut. He had soon passed Fort St. Philip, and found 
himself fitrhtintr with eleven Confederate vessels. The work which he 
did in the next few minutes is almost unequalcd. He rammed some of 
the vessels, put shot into others, turned his huge swivel gun at others, 
exploded a shell in the boiler of one and finally passed the fort with his 
division. The second division, with the flag-ship Hai'tford leading, had 
vet more serious trouble. The Haj'tford was set on fire by a fire-raft, 
but her guns were loaded and fired as coolly as if nothing was the 
matter, and at last such a rain of shot was poured into Fort St. Philip 




ADMIRAL DAVID FARRAGUT. 



that the bastions were cleared, and the gunners could be seen rimning 
to shelter. A part of the third division became entangled among the 
hulks, and did not get by the chain, but three of the six gunboats came 
on bravel)-, burning two steamboats and driving another ashore on their 
way. On the morning of the 25th New Orleans was at the mercy of the 
National guns, and the unconditional surrender of the city was 
demanded. The stars and stripes were raised over the city, and in the 
midst of the greatest tumult General Farragut took possession of the 
citv with two hundred and fiftv marines. General Butler arrived there 



WITH SHOT AND SHELL. 



477 



with his forces on the ist of May, and he kept possession of the city 
throughout the remainder of the war. When he came into it, it was 
turbulent, disorderly and mutinous. His rule of it was so stern that 
it has often been criticised severely, but he left it cleaner than it had 
ever been before, and in order and comfort. 

While the naval expedition which conquered New Orleans was on 




GENKRAI, BENJAMIN BUTLER. 



its way, the waters of Hampton Roads, from which it sailed, were the 
scene of that famous battle between the Monitor and the Merrimac^ 
which revolutionized naval warfare. The Merrimac was a great steam 
frigate, with a high hull and a steep roof covered with wrought iron 
five inches thick, with a lining of oak seven inches thick. The sides 



4/8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

of the ram were also plated with iron, and the bow was armed with an 
iron ram something like a huge plowshare. Ten guns looked out from 
the dormer windows in her roof She was under the command of 
Franklin Buchanan, and on the 8th of i^Iarch, accompanied b}- two gun- 
boats, she went out to raise the blockade of the James and Elizabeth 
rivers, by destroying the wooden war vessels in Hampton Roads. She 
first met the frigate Cumberland^ which gave her a dreadful broadside, but 
though some of the shot entered her open ports and broke two of her 
guns, all that struck her armor rattled off her like hail off a roof. She 
ran her iron prow into the Cu7nbe7'land^ and that vessel at once began 
to settle. Her commander would not surrender, however, and the crew 
stood by their guns, firing broadside after broadside, until the vessel 
went down with her colors still flying. When the frigate had reached 
the bottom, her top-mast still projected above the surface, with the 
American flag upon it. Such of the men as were not wounded leaped 
overboard at the last minute, and got ashore with the help of the boats. 
When the Merrimac had completed the destruction of this vessel she 
attacked the Congress and finally set her on fire. 

The next morning the Merrimac undertook to finish up the fleet, 
but at the opening of her operations was met by a new antagonist. It 
was a small iron vessel, looking, as the men said, "like a cheese-box on 
a raft." Nothing appeared above the water except the flat iron surface 
over which the waves washed, and a revolving iron-clad turret in which 
there was one gun. This was the Monitor^ built by John Ericsson, 
and commanded by Captain John L Worden. This little vessel had 
just been hurried into Hampton Roads, after a stormy and dangerous 
passage, when she met the Merrijnac. She placed herself between the 
wooden ships and the great Merrimac^ and a fight of four hours fol- 
lowed. The broadsides from the monstrous iron ship had little effect 
upon the saucy Monitor. At times the vessels almost touched each 
other. The Monitor drew less water than the Merrimac^ and could 
steam quite around her. By afternoon the Merrimac withdrew to 
Norfolk, and did not come down to fight again. A little later she was 
abandoned and blown up. Eight months later the plucky little Moni- 
tor foundered in a gale off Cape Hatteras. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History — Soley's "The Blockade and the Cruisers." 
Anuncu's "The Atlantic Coast." 
Parton's "General Butler in New Orleans." 
I'eckham's "General I, yon and Mi.ssouri in 1861." 
FiCTON— L. M. Childs' "A Romance of the Republic." 
C. C. Coffin's "Winninjj; His Way." 
J. !•;. Cooke's "Hilt to Hilt." 
Poetry— E. J. Butler's "War Poems." 




]h:„;ii:'illllllllllll!lllililiillffl!iiiii,iiii!iiiiiiiiii!i,ii^ ''"■ 



CHAPTER LXXXVIII. 



anh ti$ ^aijual. 



THE CAMPAIGN AT ISLAND NO. lO — THE BATTLE OF SHILOH — SIEGE 

OF CORINTH — THE CONFLICT AT THE EAST UNDER M'CLEL- 

LAN — SIEGE OF YORKTOWN — THE BATTLE OF 

WILLIAMSBURG — THE BATTLE OF SEVEN 

PINES — BATTLE OF CHICKA- 

HOMINY BATTLE OF 

MALVERN HILL. 



; HEN the first line that the Confederates had tried 
to establish from the mountains to the Mississippi 
was broken through, their forces at Columbus 
were drawn down the river to 36° 30'. Here, in 
a great curve of the Mississippi, is Island No. 10, 
and near it, in a second bend on the Missouri side, 
is New Madrid, Both of these places were forti- 
fied and under the direction of General Leonidas Polk, 
floating dock had been brought up from New Orleans 
and anchored near the island. Eight gunboats furnished 
an additional guard. The works on the island were 
also protected by batteries on the Tennessee shore, back 
of which were impassable swamps. The desire of the 
Union army was to break through this new line of 
defence, and early in March a large force, commanded by 
General John Pope, moved down the west bank of the Mississippi 
against New ^Madrid. Trenches for field guns were sunken under cover 
of darkness at a point below New Madrid, and sharpshooters placed at 
the edge of the bank to harass the passing gunboats and transports. 
Four large siege guns were taken across the city and over a long stretch 
of swampy ground, and placed in position to bombard the works. On 
the 13th of March, 1862, New Madrid was evacuated, and the Union 
forces hastened to take possession and arrange their guns so as to 




480 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

command the river. On the i6th, five Confederate gunboats attacked 
these batteries, but were damaged so that they soon drew off. On the 
1 6th and 17th the Union fleet of gunboats under Commodore Andrew 
H. Foote, engaged the batteries at Island No. 10, and a hundred heavy 
guns were in action at one time. The great and treacherous stream 
washing about the ramparts had weakened some of them so that the 
balls went straight through them, but the artillery men stood to their 
guns ankle-deep in water, undaunted in the midst of exploding shells. 
The attack was kept up from day to day; many men were killed upon 
both sides, but no decisive effect was produced. A canal was finally 
cut across the peninsula formed b}* the bend of the river above New 
Madrid. This canal was twelve miles long, and half of the distance 
lay through a deep forest, standing in water, and the trunks of the trees 
had to be sawed off four or five feet below the surface. Notwithstanding 
these difficulties, a channel fifty feet wide and four feet deep was finally 
completed, and on the night of April 14th a gunboat ran past the 
batteries of Island No. 10, escaping serious damage. On the 7th, Pope 
crossed in force, protected by the gunboat which had gone through the 
canal, and intercepted the greater part of the Confederate troops, which 
were now trying to escape southward. Pope captured three generals, 
two hundred and seventy-three officers and six thousand seven hundred 
men, besides one hundred and fifty-eight guns, seven thousand muskets, 
and a quantity of naval stores and equipments. 

On this very day, in Southwestern Tennessee, was being fought one 
of the bloodiest battles of the war, that of Shiloh. At Corinth, in 
Northern Mississippi, the Memphis and Charleston railroad crosses 
the Mobile and Ohio. This made the point of the greatest importance, 
and it was strongh- fortified by a Confederate force under General 
Albert Sidney Johnson. Under him were Generals Beauregard, Bragg 
and Hardee. 

General Grant determined to move against the place and capture it. 
On vSunday, April 6th, Grant's main force was at Pittsburg Landing, 
and divisions, under General Lew Wallace and General Buell, were 
within reach. Early on the morning of the 6th, Johnson made two 
sudden attacks upon Grant. Grant's line was two miles long, with 
General Prentiss' division on the left, McClernand's in the centre, and 
Sherman's on the right. They had no intrenchments, but the ground 
was undulating, with patches of woods among the fields, and about the 
little church of Shiloh was a ridge. Such protection as the ground 
afforded they took advantage of The attack began at day-break. The 



SHILOH AND ITS SEQUEL. 481 

Confederates were sure of success, and fought with the enthusiasm 
which such a mood will produce. Grant sent for Wallace and Buell, 
but they did not bring up their forces until night. The Union troops 
fought ever}^ inch of ground, but were forced back, little by little. 
Sherman's men were crowded back more than a mile, but still clung 
around the bridge over which they were expecting Lew Wallace to 
come to their aid. The same ground was charged over again and again 
until it was simply incumbered with the dead. General Albert Sidney 
Johnson, upon the side of the Confederates, was killed, and the 
command fell upon General Beauregard. General Sherman had several 
horses killed under him, and was three times hit with bullets, but he 
stayed on the battle field till the end. General Prentiss and twenty-two 
hundred of his men were captured by the Confederates, but Grant 
hastened to get twenty guns into position, and finally forced the 
Confederate column at that point to retire. Many of the Union men in 
this engagement were under fire for the first time, and the terrors of the 
battle completely unnerved them, and as there was no way of escaping 
beyond the river, they huddled upon the bank, frightened beyond the 
power to move. At night, Beauregard discontinued the attack, intending 
to renew it in the morning and complete his victory. Lew Wallace was 
now in position, and BuelPs army was being brought across the 
Tennessee. 

In the midst of the night a fire sprang up in the woods, and 
threatened for a time to add to the miseries of Shiloh by roasting many 
of the wounded alive, but a providential rain fell and extinguished it. 
In the morning, both armies prepared for fight — both of them desperate, 
wet and fatigued. Beauregard made a stubborn fight for the purpose 
of holding the road which ran by Shiloh Church, and by which alone 
he could conduct an orderly retreat. The death of Johnson had 
plunged the Confederates in hopeless confusion, and the men were 
melancholy and dispirited. Sherman advanced his command and 
recaptured his camps. Grant and Beauregard each led a charge with 
two regiments which had lost their commanders. Beauregard's failed, 
but Grant launched his men with a ringing cheer against the Confed- 
erate line and broke it. Beauregard had no choice but to make as 
soldierly a retreat as possible, while Grant captured nearly as many 
guns on the second day as he had lost on the first. The roads were too 
heavy and the men too exhausted to pursue Beauregard's force. The 
loss on both sides had been terrible. General Grant says that four 
thousand was the estimate of the burial parties for the whole field. 



482 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

After the battle, General Halleck took command in person and laid 
siege to Corinth to capture it by regular approaches. Both he and 
Beaures:ard were reinforced till each had about one hundred thousand 
men. Halleck closed about the place, till in the night of May agtli 
Beaureeard evacuated it and Sherman's soldiers were ordered into the 
town. It was believed by many that the battle of Shiloh decided the 
fate of the Confederacy. 

But it is necessary now to return to the campaign at the East. 
General George B. McClellan had been put in command of the Army 
of the Potomac. He had acquitted himself with distinction in the 
Mexican war, was a graduate of West Point, a thorough student of 
engineering, and had been given every advantage which the Govern- 
ment could afford. Under his direction Washington was well fortified, 
and the fifty thousand men at the capital soon swelled to one hundred 
thousand, organized thoroughly and working in perfect correspondence. 
Having got his men in this excellent state of drill, McClellan rested. 
The summer passed and then the autumn, but no movement was made. 
He had done his work so well up to this time that the people had 
confidence in him, and believed that he was only waiting for the fortunate 
moment to fall upon the Confederate capital and subdue it. But day 
after day went by, and no news came from his army except that "all 
was quiet on the Potomac." 

The Confederacy was growing stronger every day, and the Potomac 
was being closed to navigation by the building of batteries on the 
southern bank. The enemy's flag could be seen from the Capital, and 
the question of interference by the treacherous Louis Napoleon was 
agitating the statesmen. At this time General Wiufield Scott, who was 
seventy-five years of age, begged leave to retire from the responsibilities 
of the army, and McClellan succeeded him as Commander-in-chief of 
all the armies. In vain did President Lincoln urge McClellan to move. 
That general constantly called for more men, and under-estimated the 
number which he had. Pie also over-estimated the men upon the 
opposite side. The President finally called him to a council, and asked 
him to disclose his plan for the campaign, but this McClellan refused to 
do. A few days later, however, he wrote the President that his 
intention was to move his army down the Potomac on transports, land 
it at Fort Monroe, and march up to attack the defences of Richmond 
on the north and east sides. The President did not approve of this 
plan, but on consulting with various generals, concluded to permit it. 
The Confederate general, Joseph Johnston, who had commanded at 



SHILOH AND ITS SEQUEL. 483 

Bull Run, and had kept his army within easy marching distance of 
Washington ever since, now hastened to place his troops before 
Richmond. On the 27th of February, 1862, McClellan's army was 
moved down the Potomac on four hundred vessels. It numbered one 
hundred and twenty-one thousand men and these were divided into 
four corps, the commands of which were given to Generals McDowell, 
Sumner, Heintzelman and Keyes. On the 2d of April McClellan 
moved upon Yorktown, where the Confederates had a strong defence of 
earthworks. The plan of the Confederates was simply to delay 
McClellan at Yorktown till the defences at the Confederate capital could 
be strengthened. McClellan supposed that Johnston's entire army was 
in the defences at Yorktown, and he approached the place by regular 
parallels, according to the laborious methods of a well-sustained siege. 
He spent nearly a month here, and when he was ready to open fire with 
the siege guns, he found that the enemy had quietly departed, leaving 
"Quaker guns" (wooden logs on wheels) in the embrasures. McClellan 
hastened in pursuit, and overtook the Confederate rear about twelve 
miles from Yorktown, bringing about the battle of Williamsburg. 
The place had been well fortified months before, and the Confederates 
took advantage of this. The Union soldiers attacked the earthworks 
and silenced the batteries. General Hancock's sixteen hundred men 
suddenly burst over the crest of the works, and charged upon the 
enemy with fixed bayonets, forcing them back. The Confederates 
moved off in the night to join their main army, leaving four hundred 
of their wounded behind them, and taking away about as many 
prisoners. McClellan now pushed on to White House, at the head of 
York river, and established a base of supplies. From this point he 
moved westward toward Richmond, expecting to be joined by a column 
of forty thousand men under McDowell, but Stonewall Jackson made 
one of his brillant raids from the heart of the Shenandoah valley, and 
McDowell was obliged to go in pursuit of him. 

McClellan reached the Chickahominy river and fought two small 
battles at Mechanicsville and Hanover Junction. A portion of his 
army had been swung across the Chickahominy and Johnston determined 
to strike this detached wing. In the midst of a heavy rain on the 
night of May 30th, he fell upon this division. This was within half a 
dozen miles of Richmond. The Union troops were behind some half- 
finished works and resisted the charge bravely, but the Confederates 
succeeded in gaining a position in the rear of the redoubts, and it 
looked for a time as if their opponents could not hold their line. Keyes 



484 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

was in commaxid of the Union forces, and after a time Sumner's men 
succeeded in crossing the river and joining him. Sumner was the old- 
est officer in the command, but his sixty-six years did not keep him 
from being energetic. When he heard the fire on the other side he 
drew up his men in line, anticipating the order which came. There 
was but one bridge over the river, and the water was swollen so that 
many of the supports were washed away and it swung backward and 
forward with the rushing waters, but over this the men walked, their 
heavy weight steadying it somewhat, and all reached the other side in 
safety. Sumner was just in time to save Keyes, and succeeded in 
repelling the numerous charges of the Confederates and driving them 
oflf at last in confusion. The battle is known as that of Fair Oaks, or 
Seven Pines. It cost the Union army over five thousand men and the 
Confederates nearly seven thousand. General Johnston was so wounded 
that he was unable to take active command for a long time. It was 
the wet season, and several weeks followed without either army being 
able to move. The ground was made up of alternate layers of clay 
and quicksand, which turned into a swamp under the rain, and the 
guns sank into the earth by their own weight. McClellan kept calling 
for reinforcements, which he did not need, but these could not be given 
him. His position was very unfortunate, for his men were dying of 
malaria by the himdred, and his supplies were constantly imperiled by 
the swelling of the Chickahominy, which made every bridge insecure. 
The command of the Confederate forces in Virginia was now under 
General Robert E. Lee. His plan was to bring large bodies of troops 
from North Carolina, Georgia and the Shenandoah valley to fall upon 
McClellan. The total number of his army is said to have been eighty 
thousand seven hundred and sixty-two. McClellan had ninety-two 
thousand five hundred. Lee was curious to know the extent of 
McClellan' s earthworks, and sent a body of one thousand two hundred 
cavalry with two light guns to reconnoitre. This was commanded by 
General E. B. Stuart, one of the most dasliing of the Confederate 
officers, who distinguished himself by wearing a gay costume, with 
yellow sash and black plume, and pricking his white horse with golden 
spurs. He made the entire circuit of McClellan' s army, rebuilding a 
bridge to cross the lower Chickahominy, and reached Richmond in 
safety. McClellan was aroused to the danger of his position, and 
decided to make the James river his base. Stonewall Jackson filled in 
the weary days by a series of swift and brilliant movements, which 
charmed his friends and bewildered his enemies. He was selected by 



SHILOH AND ITS SEQUEL. 485 

Lee to keep up these mysterious movements for the purpose of mislead- 
ing McClellan. Secretary Stanton, one of the most careful and 
efficient war secretaries that ever lived, surmised that there was little 
significance in these movements, and advised the general of his impres- 
sion. The various misconceptions arising from these movements led 
to McClellan' s defeat at the battle of Chickahominy, which was fought 
on the 27th of June. But though the Union forces were driven from 
their position in this engagement, the loss among the Confederates was 
much the larger. McClellan now retreated through the swamp roads 
with his long trains, destroying hundreds of tons of ammunition and 







GENERAL ROBERT E. LEE. 



millions of rations before his departure. The Confederates hastened 
after the Union army and attacked the rear guard. Three times they 
assaulted and were three times repelled. After a rest they made another 
attack at sunset on the 28th, and advanced with a rush, but were 
obliged to retreat. The Union army moved slowly on, and after this 
defence were obliged to burn another immense quantity of food and 
clothing, and to leave twenty-five hundred sick and wounded men 
behind. Then a detachment of the Confederate army, under Hill and 
Longstreet, crossed the Chickahominy, marched around the Great White 
Oak swamp, through which the Union forces were passing, and struck 



486 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

the retreating army near Charles City Cross-road on the 30th. A 
terrible engagement followed. Never were there bloodier repulses or 
more daring attacks. The losses in men are not exactly known, but they 
were very large. McClellan's army, however, continued to retreat to 
Malvern Hill, where a last stand was made. This is a plateau on the 
James river, having an elevation of about six hundred feet, and an 
extent of about one mile and a half in one direction, and a mile in the 
other. It is surrounded by streams and swamps in such a manner as to 
leave no practical approach except by the narrow northwest face. Here 
McClellan placed his entire army in the form of a semi-circle, and 
waited for the enemy. His whole front bristled with artillery, and the 
men found considerable shelter behind the natural inequalities of the 
ground, Lee's men came on, excited by their successes of the week 
past, and confident that they would win. They advanced their artillery 
and began a bold attack, but their batteries were knocked to pieces in a 
few minutes. The cavalry were thrown into confusion by the shells 
from the gunboats, and rushed headlong among the infantry, breaking 
up the whole attack. On the afternoon of July ist, Lee renewed the 
assault with his whole army, but was repulsed with such a bloody fire, 
that the men began to protest against renewing the attack. The fight- 
ing was kept up till 9 o'clock in the evening, and cost Lee five 
thousand men. The Union loss was but one-third of this number. 
McClellan withdrew his army in the night to Harrison's Landing, on 
the James, where the gunboats could protect his position. This retreat 
is known as the Seven Days. McClellan's campaign was admitted to 
be a failure. Why it was so has been a subject discussed by the people 
of the North from that time to this. As a disciplinarian he was the most 
efficient general in the army. He was a. master of engineering and a 
man of personal bravery, but he lacked decision. He was over-careful. 
It should be remembered, however, that it is not the men of his com- 
mand who make this criticism. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History— Allen's "Ccn. Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley." 
Welb'.s "The Peninsula." 
Coppee's "Grant and His Campaign." 
Edge's "McClellan and Yorktown Campaign." 
Joinville's ".Army of the Potomac." 
Ree's "Hospital Life in Potomac Army." 
Swinton's "McClellan's Military Career." 
Fiction— "Surrey of Eagles Nest." 

W. A. Cruse's "Cameron Hall. " 
Poetry— Stedman's "Kearney at Seven Pines." 



CHAPTER LXXXIX. 



Hn$B of \\t ymmnln inrnpi^n. 



THE ARMY OF VIRGINIA UNDER THE COMMAND OF POPE — GENERAL- 
HALLECK MADE GENERAL-IN-CHIEF — BATTLE OF CEDAR 
MOUNTAIN — M'CLELLAN LEAVES THE PENIN- 
SULA — BATTLE OF GROVETON — LOSS 
OF GENERALS STEVENS 
AND KEARNEY. 



■N THE 26tli of June, the first of the Seven Days' 
Retreat, General John Pope, who had been called 
from the West, was put in command of the Army 
of Virginia, composed of the corps of McDowell, 
Fremont and Banks. Fremont was removed, at his 
own request, because he objected to being placed 
under an ofiScer whom he outranked. When Pope 
took command of the army it was widely scattered, 
but he soon brought the forces nearer together and 
posted them in a line forty miles long, running north- 
westerly from Fredericksburg. His plan was to 
threaten Richmond, thereby compelling Lee to detail 
a portion of his army from McClellan's front, but 
when McClellan retreated to James River this movement was necessarily 
postponed. The Administration soon saw that it would be impossible 
for McClellan and Pope to work together, so widely did their ideas 
differ upon the conduct of the campaign, and General Halleck was 
called from the West and made General-in-chief of all the armies of the 
Union. On July 23, 1862, he assumed command. He was a man of 
wide military knowledge, but from the first his ideas seemed to be 
obscure and impracticable, and his wide militar>' learning hampered 
rather than benefited the armies under him. Pope cheered his army 
with a ringing address, in which there were some allusions to McClel- 
lan's conduct of the campaign which won him many enemies. He 




488 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

said: "I have come from the West, where we have always seen the 
backs of our enemies, from an army whose polic\- has been attack, not 
defense," and his immediate plans were to advance upon Gordonsville, 
a place commanding the railroad communications with the far South 
and Southwest. It was hoped by these means to draw a considerable 
part of Lee's army awa}' from Richmond, and thus aid any movement 
by the Army of the Potomac against the rebel capital. Lee at once 
saw the danger of this threatened movement, and sent Jackson, with 
two divisions, to Gordonsville, with the promise of reinforcements. 
Jackson found Pope too strong to warrant him in acting on the offen- 
sive, and contented himself with merely occupying Gordonsville, A 
fortnight passed quietly, and it was then learned that General Burn- 
side's corps had sailed from North Carolina, and arrived at Fortress 
Monroe; thence, instead of going to McClellan, on the James, it had 
gone to the Rappahannock. On July 27th, Lee reinforced Jackson, at 
Gordonsville. Jackson then moved northward. Pope had already 
began to move southward, and, quite by accident, the advance of the 
two armies came into collision on August 9th, at Cedar ^Mountain, 
twenty miles north of Gordonsville. Banks had eight thousand men, 
and the column of Confederates attacking him had about the same 
number. For a while the fight was in favor of the Union troops, but 
when rebel reinforcements came up. Banks was driven back, hotlv pur- 
sued by the enemy. Pope was a few miles away with the bulk of his 
force. He hurried up as soon as possible, and checked the attack by 
nightfall. Two days passed with the armies facing each other, and 
neither caring to attack. Jackson then learned that the Union troops 
had reinforcements and fell back across the Rapidan. The Rebel loss 
at Cedar Mountain is given at thirteen hundred and fourteen, the Union 
loss at nineteen hundred. 

Meanwhile McClellan held a strong position at Harrison's Landing, 
where, if he did nothing else, he was a menace to Richmond, so that 
Lee dared not draw his army from its defense. Lee was very anxious 
to get McClellan off the Peninsula so that he could strike out toward 
Washington. He therefore sent a detachment to bombard McClellan' s 
camp from the opposite side of the river. But this McClellan easily 
swept away. Then Lee appointed Jackson to make a series of erratic 
movements through the country for the express purpose of alarming the 
Administration at Washington so that they would order ]\IcClellan's 
army to leave the Peninsula. The commander-in-chief, Halleck, fell 
into the trap laid, and McClellan' s army was ordered to evacuate the 



CLOSE OF THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 489 

Peninsula, and, as has been said, Burnside's troops — whicli were 
intended for McClellan in the first place — were sent on to Pope. 
]\IcClellan marched his army to Fortress Monroe, and there embarked 
it by divisions for the same destination. Within a week after the battle 
of Cedar Mountain, Lee, seeing that McClellan was leaving the Penin- 
sula, forwarded Longstreet's division and a part of Hood's to Gordons- 
ville, and prepared to follow with his entire army. As Jackson and 
Longstreet advanced across the Rapidan river. Pope fell back beyond 
the Rappahannock. Here Burnside's troops reached him. When Lee 
came up with the remainder of his army and found it impossible to cross 
the Rappahannock in front of Pope, he sent Jackson to make a flank 
march westward along that stream, cross it at Silver Springs, and come 
down upon Pope's right. But Jackson found that a heavy force was 
already at Silver Springs ready to meet him. Meanwhile, the dashing 
General Stuart, with fifteen hundred cavalry, crossed the river on the 
stormy night of the 22d, and guided by a negro, dashed through the dark- 
ness and the rain upon the tents occupied by Pope's staff. Some of these 
were made prisoners, and Stuart secured Pope's dispatch book contain- 
ing exact information of the number and position of the forces then with 
him, and the reinforcements promised him and also the direction from 
which they were to come. The Confederate generals saw that if 
their army could be flung upon Pope's rear, his communications might 
be cut off, and his army routed before it could be reinforced by McClel- 
lan, with the Army of the Potomac. This movement, to be successful, 
must be a surprise, and it was necessary to make it with men unincum- 
bered with trains. To do this, Lee had to divide his force for at least 
four days, in the face of the enemy. The initial movement was given 
to Jackson, who began his march on the morning of August 25th. 
With nothing but his artillery to hamper him, he moved quickly 
through the narrow valley on the east side of the Bull Run Mountains, 
by every short cut which the fields permitted. At midnight he reached 
the head of Thoroughfare Gap, through which the mountains must be 
passed. It was a gap that might have been held by a handful of men 
against thousands, but Jackson found it wholly unguarded, and on the 
morning of the 27th, passed through and headed for Bristoe Station, an 
important point on the railroad, which formed Pope's main source of 
supply. Jackson left General Ewell here, and himself went northward 
to Manassas Junction, where there was a great depot of stores almost 
unguarded. These were taken, and what could not be consumed on 
the spot were destroyed. Pope learned, meanwhile, of what was going 



490 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



on and sent a detachment toward Bristoe. In the encounter which 
followed Ewell was worsted. Pope was now thoroughly aroused and 
Jackson's position was a critical one. Jackson saw that he might be 
attacked by vastly superior numbers, and he fell back toward Thorough- 
fare Gap. Not wishing to show what his ultimate destination w^as to 
be, he took up a defensive position upon the spot where the battle of 
Bull Run had been fought more than a year before. The position was 
a strong one and had the advantage of a deep cut which formed the bed 




A RAILROAD BATTERY. 



of an abandoned railroad. This could be used as an intrenchment. 
Here the battle was opened, on the morning of the 29th, and from day- 
light till after dark the Union troops led the attack and the Confeder- 
ates stoutly stood to the defense. As night closed in Pope believed 
that Jackson was retreating, although Jackson was only withdrawing a 
part of his line to join with Longstreet's reinforcements. Pope was 
also reinforced on the morning of the 30th, and ordered McDowell to 
press on in pursuit. Then the Union troops learned that Jackson had 



CLOSE OF THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN. 49I 

not been retreating, when the Confederates presented a solid front, and 
the entire force on both sides was engaged in a hot conflict. All 
through the day, first one and then the other of the divisions on both 
sides were repulsed, only to reform and renew the attack. In the end 
the Union army was defeated, though not routed, and it retreated in good 
order across the Bull Run, and fell back to Centreville. This engage- 
ment is sometimes known as the second battle of Bull Run, but oftener 
as the battle of Groveton. The entire Confederate loss for the three 
days was eight thousand four hundred and ten in killed and wounded. 
The Union loss was not less than eleven thousand. Lee says that he 
took seven thousand unwounded prisoners. Pope confessed that there 
was terrible straggling among the Union troops, and that thousands of 
men left their commands and were never in any action. The result of 
the action, though not discouraging to the supporters of the Union 
cause, showed rather conclusively that Pope had been outgeneraled by 
Jackson. 

In spite of the fierce storm that raged through the 31st, Jackson 
pursued the Union troops across Bull Run. McDowell and Heintzel- 
man were sent to oppose him, and the forces met at Chantilly on Sep- 
tember ist. There was a slight encounter in the twilight, and in it 
were lost two of the most eflicient Union generals, Stevens and Phil 
Kearney. Kearney had ridden forward to reconnoitre, and coming 
suddenly upon a squad of Confederates, was shot. He had lost an 
arm in the Mexican War, was with Napoleon III at Solferino and 
IMagenta, and had just passed through the Peninsula campaign with 
McClellan. 

The battle of Groveton brought about one of the most distressing 
incidents of the war. General Fitz-John Porter was removed from com- 
mand because he did not obey orders, and move to support Pope when 
he was commanded to do so. It will be remembered that Jackson was 
opposed to Pope in a parallel line, and that Longstreet had come up to 
reinforce Jackson, Pope did not know this, but Porter did, and he 
feared to leave his position, when by doing so Longstreet could turn 
Pope's left flank. Thousands of pages have been written concerning 
the matter, and most writers on the subject have agreed that Porter 
deserved the severe punishment which he received. He was court- 
martialed, degraded from his position, and forbidden to hold any office 
of trust or remimeration under the United States Government. Some 
reparation has been made in later years, however, and General Grant, in 
reviewing the subject, finally declared that he did not believe Porter to 



492 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



be at fault. After the affair at Chantilly, Lee made no further attempt 
on Pope's army, and on September 2d, by Halleck's orders, it was 
withdrawn to the fortifications at Washington, where it was merged 
in the Army of the Potomac. The losses in the campaign are un- 
known. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History— Gilmore's "Four Years in the Saddle." 

Hepvvorth's "Whip, Hoe and Sword." 

Kirkland's "Anecdotes of the Rebellion." 

Oats' "Prison Life in Dixie." 
Fiction— Cobb's "Veteran of the Grand Army." 

A. C. Denson's "Westmoreland." 

Fuller's "Browning's." 

J. R. Gilmore's "Among the Guerrillas." 



CHAPTER XC. 

lee's army moves northward — THE BATTLE OF SOUTH MOUNTAIN 
— THE BATTLE OF ANTIETAM. 




.ENERAL LEE now pushed northward into 
Maryland, with his whole army. The movement 
was commenced on the third of September, and 
on the fifth the army crossed the Potomac at a 
point thirty miles above Washington. The 
entire force was not more than sixty thousand, 
for, aside from losses by sickness and death, 
many of the Confederates were debarred from active 
service by fatigue. In six weeks Lee had lost fully 
thirty thousand men. When he reached Frederick City 
he addressed the people of Maryland in a paternal and 
conciliatory manner, telling them that the people of the 
Confederate States had long watched the wrongs 
inflicted upon the citizens of a commonwealth to which 
they were bound by so many ties, and wished to aid them in throwing 
off this foreign yoke. A call for recruits to the Confederate army was 
made, but less than five hundred Marylanders responded to this appeal, 
and the towns through which Lee passed showed closed blinds and 
deserted streets. It was evident that the Confederate armies were not 
welcome in Maryland. Most of those who had sympathized with the 
cause of the South had already joined the Confederate armies, but the 
greater part of the fighting men of Maryland were enlisted with the 
national forces. The Confederate army was in the most miserable state. 
It was ragged, dirty, footsore, and, no doubt, heartily homesick. But 
there was no lack of bravery; indeed, it was a standing joke that 
bravery was the cheapest thing among them. Had their cause been 
righteous, the spectacle of this suffering army would have been 



494 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



sublime. As it was, it was simply pitiable. Rags and miser>' dignify 
a noble cause, but they can only accent the mistakes of an unright- 
eous one. 

McClellan rapidly re-organized his army, and in less than a week 
had one hundred and seventy-two thousand men, of whom one hundred 
thousand were to form the movable force, and the rest to be kept for the 
defense of Washington. Banks was placed in command of the fortifi- 
cations at the capital. On the seventh of September McClellan moved 
toward Lee, whose force he estimated at just twice its actual number. 
On the tenth Lee move northwestward, his immediate destination being 
Hagerstown. To reach this, he had to cross the South mountains, a 
steep range, one thousand feet high, cut through to a depth of four 
hundred feet by Turner's and Crampton's Gaps. These gaps were six 
miles apart. The national forces reached Frederick on the twelfth, and 
McClellan accidentally came into possession of a copy of General Lee's 
order book, which contained the movements and operations of the next 
few days. In this book McClellan learned that Lee intended to take 
possession of the heights around Harper's Ferr\', where fourteen hundred 
raw national troops guarded the United States arsenal. The ferr}' is in 
a narrow valley, at the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah. 
Upon three sides are the heights. If these were occupied, it would be 
subjected to a fire to which there could be no effective reply. Jackson's 
corps, now fifteen thousand strong, was to pass through Turner's Gap, 
make a wide detour, cross the Potomac above the ferr\-, and, going 
down the river, seize Bolivar Heights on the west. A part of Long- 
street's corps was to go by way of Crampton's Gap, and seize Maryland 
Heights on the east; while yet another detachment was to move up the 
Potomac and seize Loudon Heights on the south. When Harper's 
Ferry was captured, the whole anny was to be re-united at Hagerstown. 

McClellan had reason to be gratified at the reception which he met 
at Frederick. But the serious work before him left him no time to 
enjoy the festivities prepared for him. Walker had already gained 
Loudon Heights. Maryland Heights were also occupied. Miles, who 
commanded the force at Harper's Ferr}^, remained stupidly in the trap, 
and was obliged to consent to Jackson's terms of unconditional surren- 
der. More than fifteen thousand men laid down their anus, and were at 
once paroled. The Confederates also gained a large number of guns 
and muskets. Jackson's own division was allowed no time for rest, but 
was ordered to join Lee, who was hard pressed fifteen miles away. 
They began their march at midnight, and in the grey of the seventeenth. 



THE BLOODY FIELD OF ANTIETAM. 495 

such of the men as had held out joined Lee, and were given their places 
in line of battle. What had happened with Lee was this : He had learned 
that McClellan knew of his plans, and realized, of course, that he 
would try to thwart them. McClellan arrived at Turner's and Cramp- 
ton's Gaps on the morning of the 14th. Lee had learned of his 
movements, and had a defence at each gap. Turner's Gap was flanked 
by two old roads that crossed the mountain a mile north and south of it. 
Using these and clambering up from rock to rock, the Union troops 
reached the crests, opposed at every step by the Confederate riflemen 
between the trees and ledges. There was a bloody and persistent fight 
all day, with the Union forces constantly gaining ground, and at dark 
the field was won. The Confederates withdrew in the night, and in the 
morning the victorious columns passed through to the western side of the 
mountain. In this battle McClellan lost fifteen hundred men killed or 
wounded. The Confederates lost about the same number, and in 
addition fifteen hundred were made prisoners. The fight at Crampton's 
Gap was quite similar. These two actions, fought September 14, 1862, 
are known as the Battle of South Mountain. 

Lee then withdrew across Antietam creek, and took up a strong 
position beyond that stream. Lee's army numbered now only a little 
over forty thousand. The stragglers were numerous and with little 
wonder. Lee might console himself, however, with the reflection, that 
the men who had stood by him were his best men, and that he could 
bring the very flower of his forces into the coming battle. The 
Antietam was crossed by four stone bridges and a ford, and all except 
the most northern bridge were strongly guarded. The ground consisted 
of rich meadows, dotted with cornfields and groves. On the i6th 
McClellan threw his right wing across the Antietam by the northern 
unguarded bridge, intending to engage the enemy's attention there, and 
thus to force the other bridges and cross with his forces. An artillery 
duel was kept up through the day across the creek, in which the Con- 
federate generals acknowledged that their batteries were no match for 
their opponents. The skirmish brought on by Hooker's crossing the 
upper bridge was soon ended by the gathering darkness, and the men 
rested where they were. In the night McClellan sent reinforcements to 
Hooker. Sumner was put in readiness to follow at an early hour, and 
preparations for a battle were made. Meanwhile Lee had also made his 
preparations. All but two thousand of his forces had come up, and 
when the morning of September 17th dawned. Hooker assaulted Johns- 
ton at sunrise. A more beautiful spot could hardly have been imagined, 



496 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

or a more peaceful one. But now it was desecrated by two determined 
armies, both bent upon a battle, in which there could be no surprises, 
no shirking or evading — nothing but misery and death. Early in the 
day Hooker was seriously wounded and taken from the field, while 
Sumner crossed the stream and came up with his corps. His men drove 
back the enemy, and were apparently advancing to victory, when two 
fresh divisions were brought over from the Confederate ranks and thrust 
in a gap in Sumner's line. The Confederates were driven back to their 
former position after a bloody struggle, and fighting of this sort went on 
all forenoon. Lee was forced to bring into action every available man, 
while on the other side Porter and Burnside, with their strong divisions, 
lay idly by and were not called into action. It was 4 o'clock in the 
afternoon before Burnside led his men across the Antietam to aid in the 
attack. He succeeded in gaining a strong position where he could 
enfilade the Confederate lines. But at this moment General A. P. Hill 
came up from Harper's Ferry with four thousand men. These flung 
themselves fiercely into the attack, and Burnside's corps fled in disorder 
to the creek, which they crossed the next morning. The entire Union 
loss in the bloody battle of Antietam was two thousand and ten killed, 
nine thousand four hundred and sixteen wounded and one thousand 
and forty-three missing. The entire Confederate loss was not less than 
twenty thousand. 

This terrible destruction of life had been almost useless. The battle 
of Antietam was not a decisive one, but it was very encouraging to the 
North, and President Lincoln, emboldened by it, put forth a hint of the 
proclamation of the abolition of slavery, saying that if on the first of 
the ensuing January the Rebellion should still continue, he should, in 
virtue of his power as Commander-in-chief of the Army and Navy of the 
United States, order and declare that all persons held as slaves in the 
rebellious sections were to be free from that time forever, and that the 
Executive Government of the United States should recognize and 
maintain their freedom; and, also, that such persons of suitable condi- 
tion should be received into the armed service of the United States. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 
History — Banvard's "Trasic Scenes in the History of llarjland." 

I^ogan's "Great Conspiracy." 

Williams' "Negro Troops in the Rebellion." 
Fiction — Mrs. R. Hare's "Standish." 

J. H. Hosmer's "Thinking Bayonet." 

S. Lanier's "Tiger Lilies." 

J. H. Mathew's "Guy Hamilton." 
Poetry — G. W. nerve's "Ballads of the War." 

E. V. Mason's "Southern Poetry of the War." 

H. Melville's "Battle Pieces." 



u 



CHAPTER XCL 



V 



BURNSIDE MADE COMMANDER OF THE ARMY OF THE POTOMAC — THE 



BATTLE OF FREDERICKSBURC 



-THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMA- 



TION — BATTLES OF PERRYVILLE, lUKA, CORINTH, 
(^\ MURFREESBORO AND CHAN- 

. CELLORVILLE. 




N November, 1862, General Burnside succeeded 
"^ ]\IcClellan in command of the Army of the 
Potomac. President Lincoln had shown the 
utmost patience with McClellan. Twice he had 
visited his headquarters to see for himself the 
condition of the army, and to find, if he possibly 
could, wh}' a general with an army outnumbering the 
enemy two to one, should have permitted that enemy to be 
so aesfressive. In short, Mr. Lincoln was determined to 
put an end to the Rebellion and bring the South to terms. 
General ISIcClellan did not believe in punishing the 
South, but only in repelling an invasion of those States 
that still remained in the Union. He had followed Lee 
as far as the Potomac, and then sat quietly down and 
called for unlimited reinforcements. He complained that his men 
wanted shoes, and that his horses were fatigued. Weeks of beautiful 
fall weather passed without tempting him to any exploits. On the 
twenty-sixth of October, he began to cross the Potomac, but it was ten 
days before his army was all on the south side of the river, and then he 
renewed his delays. It was, therefore, a great relief to all the loyal 
people of America when j\IcClellan was removed. 

Ambrose E. Burnside was a graduate of West Point. He had 
commanded cavalry in the Mexican war, ser\'ed faithfully, thus far, in 
the Rebellion, and was the inventor of a breech-loading rifle. The 
command of the i\rmy of the Potomac had been offered to him twice 
before, but he had refused it on the ground that he was not competent 



^gS THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

to command such a large army. When he accepted it, he did so with 
rehictance. At this time the right wing of Lee's army, under Long- 
street, was near Culpepper, and the left, under Jackson, was in the 
Shenandoah valley. They were so far apart that it would take two 
days for one force to march to the other, and McClellan said that it had 
been his intention to get between them. Burnside did not continue this 
plan, but set out for Richmond, by way of the north branch of the Rap- 
pahannock and the city of Fredericksburg. He spent ten days in 
reorganizing his army into three grand divisions, under Sumner, Hooker 
and Franklin. On the 15th of November he began marching, and on 
the 20th the whole army was at Falmouth, waiting for the pontoon 
train, which was to meet the army at this point, to take them across 
the river. They did not arrive for a week, and, in the meantime, Lee, 
to protect Richmond, placed his army on the heights south and west of 
Fredericksburg, and began to fortify them. His line was about five 
miles and a half long; his position well selected and fortified. Burn- 
side had taken possession of the heights on the river, that he might 
defend the passage of his troops, with a large number of guns. But he 
did not attempt to cross the stream until the loth of December. His 
plan was to lay down five bridges — three opposite the cit}', and the 
others two miles below. The work was begun in a thick fog, but 
before the bridges had covered half the stream the fog was dispersed, 
and the movements of the national army revealed to the Confederates. 
A detachment of IMississippi riflemen had been concealed behind stone 
walls, in cellars, and every other protected place, and now picked off, 
with fatal accuracy, the men who were laying the bridges. The 
unfortunate soldiers fell, one after another, and were carried down the 
river with the current. Even the bravest finally shrank from the task 
of completing the bridge, and the work had to be discontinued. At 
the lower bridges the sharpshooters were dislodged after a time, and the 
bridges completed, but along the front of the town they were well 
sheltered, and the national guns could not be made to reach them. 
Burnside tried bombarding the town, throwing seventy tons of iron 
into it, and setting it on fire, but the sharpshooters were not dislodged. 
At last, three regiments, the Seventeenth Michigan, and the Nineteenth 
and Twentieth Massachusetts, volunteered to cross the river in pontoon 
boats, and drive the sharpshooters from their retreats. They did it, 
under a murderous fire, and captured a hundred of the sharpshooters 
before they could escape to the hills. The bridges were then completed, 
and on the 12th of September the entire army was on the Fredericksburg 



"all us niggahs is free!" 499 

side of the river. Lee had concentrated his whole army on the fortified 
heights; Longstreet was on his left and Jackson on his right. His 
army was in good spirits and determined to sncceed. Burnside's orders 
at the beginning of the day were somewhat inconsistent, and his 
commanders were confused and irritated by them. 

General Meade's division was the first to advance. It did so under 
a heavy Confederate fire, broke between two divisions of the first 
Confederate line, captured many prisoners and some battle-flags, and 
scaling the heights, came upon the second line. This drove them back, 
but they were protected from pursuit by Birney's division. Generals 
French and Hancock attacked with Sumner's division. They moved 
through the town and deployed in columns under the fire of the 
Confederate batteries. The hottest fighting took place at the foot of 
Mar>''s Hill, just below the city. This hill falls off suddenly to a 
sunken road, faced on the city side by a low stone wall. The hill was 
crowned with batteries, and this sunken road was used as a defence of 
the hill. French and Hancock, as they went on bravely with their 
divisions, were quite unconscious of the sunken road that lay by the 
wall. Their division had the distinction of never having turned their 
backs to the enemy, and they were as determined now as men could be. 
The front to be carried was so narrow that scarcely more than a brigade 
could be brought up at once, and as these rushed on, brigade after 
brigade was swept back till fully four thousand men were killed and 
wounded. Burnside was watching the fight from across the river and 
said to Hooker, "That crest must be crossed to-night." All who heard 
him protested, but Burnside insisted that it must be done, and as night 
was approaching Hooker made ready to attack. He began by a fierce 
artillery fire, but this made no more impression, so he said, "than if it 
had been made against a mountain of rock." The Confederate fire 
from the crest had ceased, for their ammunition had given out. At 
sunset Hooker ordered Humphreys, with four thousand men, to make 
an assault with empty muskets, as there was no time to load and fire. 
They rushed on toward the low stone wall. The sunken road could 
not be seen by them, but within it were troops standing four deep and 
perfectly protected from the fire. So numerous, indeed, were they 
that only a part of them fired and the rest loaded muskets. When 
within a few rods of this road, a solid sheet of lead and fire was poured 
upon the advancing column. In fifteen minutes seventeen hundred of 
the four thousand assailants were killed or wounded. Then the 
depleted columns were withdrawn and the battle was ended. The 



500 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Confederate loss had been, in all, but five thousand four hundred and 
nine; the Union was thirteen thousand four hundred and eighty-seven. 
In the night the Union troops brought in their wounded and buried 
some of their dead. Burnside would have liked to make a fresh attack 
the next day, but the other generals dissuaded him, and the anny was 
withdrawn to the north bank of the Rappahannock. The Confederates 
began to regard themselves as almost invincible, but had they stopped 
to consider they would have seen that troops who could stand such 
disaster without panic or protest, were men whose staying qualities 
were more than a match for them, and who were bound to succeed in 
the end by force of their intrepidity and immovable courage. But it 
was the misfortune of the Union army to be poorly commanded. 

The warning of President Lincoln concerning the emancipation of 
slaves was unheeded, and on the ist of January, 1863, he issued a 
proclamation for the emancipation of about three million slaves, and 
announced that black men would be received into the military and 
naval service of the United States. Twice before emancipation of this 
nature had been made concerning limited territor}^ — the first one by 
General Fremont, the second by General David Hunter. On both 
occasions Lincoln had annulled the order. It may seem strange to 
many at this day that Lincoln should have delayed so long before 
declaring emancipation. He was himself opposed to slavery, but his 
chief desire was to preserve the government. He wished to force the 
seceding States to return to their allegiance, and he meant to do this 
before everything else. Two years of the war had passed, therefore, 
before the main cause of that war was acknowledged by either side. 
The Confederates, with their strong confidence in their prowess, smiled 
at the emancipation of the slaves. They did not believe that it could 
ever be effected. But they were angered and annoyed beyond endur- 
ance at the anouncement of the President that hereafter persons of color 
should be used in the army and navy. Previously, the Union forces 
had shown a consideration which was almost superstitious in this matter. 
The people of the North had so long respected all Southern claims 
that even in the hour of conflict they still had regard for them, and were 
not willing to offend popular prejudice by using the black man on the 
battle field. When General Hunter had organized a regiment of black 
troops, designated as the First South Carolina Volunteers, and the first 
body of negro soldiers mustered in the Union service during the war, 
there was the greatest alann in Congress. A representative from 
Kentucky introduced a resolution asking for information concerning 



"all us niggahs is free!" 501 

regiments of fugitive slaves. The Secretar)- of War referred him to 
Hunter himself Hunter said: "No regiment of fugitive slaves has 
been or is being organized in this department. There is, however, a 
fine regiment of persons whose late masters are fugitive rebels ; men who 
everywhere fly before the appearance of the Union flag, leaving their 
servants behind them to shift as best they can for themselves. In the 
absence of any fugitive master law, the deserted slaves would be wholly 
without remedy, had not their crime of treason given the slaves right 
to pursue, capture and bring back these persons of whose protection they 
had been so suddenly bereft." 

But though Lincoln was cautious and slow in stating his position, 
there was not a man in America who doubted that he would stand by it 
when once it was made public. The wisdom shown in his great caution 
was proved by the criticisms which he received, even at the North, for 
the proclamation. The Democratic ranks were immediately swelled. 
It was only the men of strong opinions and moral courage who stood 
by the much-tried President at this time. But fortunately he was not 
a man who needed the approval or encouragement of others. When 
once he was sure that he was right, nothing could affect him, and 
though the criticisms of his friends may have grieved him, they did not 
alter his course. Thus began the year 1863. 

On December 31st and January 2d there was a great battle in the 
West. The Confederate Congress, in 1862, had passed a conscription 
act, forcing every man of military age into the ranks. Military age at 
that time was an expansive period, and boys were taken from school 
and sent to camps of instruction. General Beauregard had been 
succeeded by General Bragg, who, with forty thousand men, marched 
northward into Eastern Kentucky and defeated a Union force near 
Richmond and another at Munfordsville. He then took the liberty of 
appointing a Governor for Kentucky, assuming it to be a State of the 
Confederacy, and forced Kentuckians into his army. As he went 
through the country he plundered farmers and villages, but, with 
singular inconsistency, tried to arouse enthusiasm among the Kentuck- 
ians. It is said, however, that he did not even secure enough recruits 
to fill the place of his dead and wounded. He was marching back into 
Tennessee when General Buell, with about fifty-eight thousand men, 
hurried after him. At Perryville, October 8, 1862, Bragg turned and 
gave battle. At first the Union forces suffered severely, and their raw 
troops were put to a test which they could not stand, but General 
Philip H. Sheridan, with his experienced men, repelled the assault. 



502 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

and when night came the Confederates had been driven back. In the 
night, Bragg moved off with his whole army, leaving one thousand of 
his wounded behind. General Halleck, at Washington, then planned 
a campaign for Buell's army in East Tennessee, to which Bragg had 
retreated. For certain reasons Buell refused to carry out these plans, 
and he was removed from command, his place being given to General 
William S. Rosecrans. 

Farther south there had been troubles at about the same time. A 
Confederate army of forty thousand men, under Generals Price and 
Van Dorn, crossed from Arkansas into Mississippi, in September, with 
the intention of capturing Grant's position at Corinth, and, breaking 
through the Union line of defense, to co-operate with Bragg. luka was 
seized by Price, and Grant sent out a force against him under Rose- 
crans. On the 19th of September the battle of luka was fought, after 
which Price retreated and joined Van Dorn. These tried to capture 
Corinth, on October 3d, and in the first day's fighting they succeeded 
in forcing Rosecrans to his intrenchments. But the following morning 
Rosecrans received reinforcements, and the Confederates were repelled 
all along the line and driven into a disordered retreat. As Rosecrans 
neglected at Corinth, as well as at luka, to pursue the enemy. Grant 
dismissed him from service. The Confederates were also displeased 
with their general. They had been very anxious for the capture of 
Corinth, since it contained immense quantities of supplies. General 
Van Dorn was removed and the command of the Confederate troops 
given to General John C. Pemberton. 

Bragg, meanwhile, had taken up an excellent position at Murfrees- 
boro, forty miles from Nashville. Here he fortified a strong position on 
the shallow, fordable stream known as Stone river. IVIurfreesboro 
counted itself quite safe from attack, and indulged in the ga)eties 
which usually follow the arrival of unemployed troops in a town. 
General H. Morgan, the leader of the famous guerrilla band, was married 
in Murfreesboro by that ministerial warrrior, Leonidas Polk, who had 
the distinction of being bishop and general at the same time. Jefferson 
Davis was present at the wedding, and danced with the rest upon the 
United States flag, with which the floor was carpeted, to signify that 
the Confederacy had it literally under their feet. This gayety was broken 
in upon suddenly by the appearance of Rosecrans, with forty-three 
thousand men, within sight of Bragg's intrenchments. The following 
day — three days after Christmas — Bragg crossed the river before sunrise, 
and broke upon the right of the national column. Throughout the 



"ALL US NIGGAHS IS FREE!" 503 

morning success was with the Confederates, but in the afternoon the 
;greater cahnness and endurance of the Northern forces began to tell, 
and when the day closed Rosecrans had not moved from his position, 
though he had lost many men, twenty-eight guns, and had the uncom- 
fortable consciousness that the enemy's cavalry was between him and 
his communications. The armies rested by common consent the next 
day, but, on the second day of the New Year, Rosecrans sent a division 
across the stream to strike at Bragg' s communications. The command 
of Breckenridge was sent to attack this division and succeeded in 
driving it back to the river, when Breckenridge was surprised with a 
terrible artillery fire, and in twenty minutes lost two thousand men. A 
charge of the Union infantry followed up this advantage and ended the 
battle of Murfreesboro. Rosecrans hastened to take possession of some 
high ground with his batteries, with the intention of shelling the town, 
but the Confederate army retreated. The Union loss in killed and 
wounded was eight thousand seven hundred and seventy-eight and in 
prisoners about twenty-eight hundred. Bragg lost ten thousand men. 
After Burnside's failure at I'redericksburg he was removed from the 
command, given a subordinate position, and General Joseph Hooker 
superseded him. Hooker was a graduate of West Point, had been 
through the Florida and iMexican Wars, and also the Peninsula cam- 
paign with McClellan. He was a man of almost reckless bravery, and 
had gained the nickname of "Fighting Joe" among the boys. Lincoln 
eloquently prayed him to "beware of rashness, but with energy and 
sleepless vigilance, go forward and give us victories. ' ' The discipline of 
the Army of the Potomac was soon restored under Hooker, and as the 
spring of 1863 opened, the outlook for the Union cause was good. 
Hooker proposed to cross the Rappahannock and strike Lee's left. He 
crossed quickly, and, with forty-six thousand men, reached Chancellors- 
ville before Lee was aware of his movements. This place was not a 
village, but a single house, named after its owner. From it to Fred- 
ericksburg was a stretch of open country, and west of it a dense thicket, 
known as the "Wilderness" — a name which later grew to have a tragic 
signification. On May ist Lee brought up nearly his whole army, trying 
to find out Hooker's exact position. His daring approach seemed to awe 
Hooker, and so far from acting with rashness, he used too much caution, 
and drew back some of his more advanced positions. He formed his 
army in a circle and awaited an attack. His left and centre were strongly 
posted, but his right was unprotected, and this Lee saw immediately 
when he opened battle on the morning of the 2d. He sent Jackson 



504 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



on one of those sudden dashes which were so fatal to his oppo- 
nents, and they rushed over the crest of a hill upon Hooker's 
rieht. Before them came a drove of wild animals scared from 
their thickets. The Union column broke at that point, and it 
it looked as if the day was likely to turn against them. General Alfred 
Pleasanton, with two regiments of cavalry and a battery, was ordered 
to hasten to a high position at Hazel Grove. At the same time a 
strong force of Confederates made for it. To gain time, ]\Iajor Peter 







UNITED STATES MILITARY TET.EC.RAPH WAGON. 



Keenan, with the Eighth Pennsylvania cavalry, about four hundred 
strong, was ordered to charge upon the Confederate infantry and delay 
them a moment till Pleasanton could gain the desired point. Keenan 
and his men knew that they were ordered to certain death, but they did 
not hesitate. The enemy stopped, astonished at the audacity of their 
assailants, and Pleasanton, with his twenty-two guns, gained Hazel Grove, 
loaded them with double charires of cannister and turned a storm of 



"all us niggahs is free!" 505 

iron upon the columns of the Confederates. As the day was near its 
close Stonewall Jackson was killed accidentally by some of his own men. 
The next morning, May 3d, the battle was renewed under Stuart, 
the brilliant young cavalry leader, and Lee attacked in front with all his 
force. General Hooker was rendered insensible by a shot from a can- 
non ball that struck the pillar of the Chancellor House, against which 
he was leaning. After this the Union side fought in broken detachments 
and without order. In the midst of this Lee learned that the Union 
division, under Sedgwick, had defeated the opposing force, captured 
Fredericksburg Heights and was marching upon the Confederate rear. 
Lee therefore drew off a large detachment of his army and turned upon 
Sedgwick, who was checked with considerable loss, and crossed the 
river after nightfall. In the midst of a great storm which followed, the 
Union army crossed the Rappahannock, leaving their dead and wounded 
on the battle field. In the battle of Chancellorsville, the Union loss 
was about seventeen thousand, and the Confederates about thirteen 
thousand. 

FOR FURTHER READING : 
History— Palfrey's "Antietam and Fredericksburg." 

Doubleday's "Chancellorsville and Gettysburg." 
Cook's "Life of Robert E. Lee." 
Hosmer's "The Color Guard." 
Fiction — F. A. Loring^s "Two College Friends." 
H. Morford s "The Days of Shoddy." 
H. Morford's "Shoulder Straps." 
H. Morford's "The Coward." 
M. J. Magill's "Women." 



CHAPTER XCII. 



THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG AND THE SIEGE OF VICKSBURG. 




3d and 4th of July, 1863, are memorable days 
in the War of Secession, One marked Lee's 
defeat at Gettysburg, the other Pemberton's sur- 
render at Vicksburg to the invincible Grant. 
Grant and Sherman had planted their determined 
armies before the city of Vicksburg in the middle 
of May, and the country divided its attention between 
this interesting game at the West, and Lee's aggressions 
at the East. The triumphs at Fredericksburg and 
Chancellorsville had given the men of the South great 
confidence in their powers. Public opinion was forcing 
Lee to invade the North, and Hooker, who watched him 
closely, perceived by the 28th of ]\Iay — and sent word to 
the President to that effect — that a northern movement 
might be expected from the Confederates. On the 3d of 
June the prophecy was fufilled. 

Hooker learned that the dashing Stuart, with the entire Confederate 
cavalry, was at Culpepper, and the Northern general therefore hastened 
to send all of his cavalr)-, under Pleasanton, with two brigades of 
infantry, to attack it there. The Union troops advanced in two columns, 
but failed to unite, and partly through this failure were obliged to with- 
draw. This engagement is known as the battle of Fleetwood. It 
taught the Union troops the need for improving their cavalr>-, and this 
improvement became rapid and marked until in time the Northern 
cavalry was vastly superior to that of the South. Hooker was anxious 
to meet Lee's northern movement with some brilliant action, which 
should discourage the Confederate army, and inspire the Northern 
one with confidence. But General Halleck, the military advisor at 
Washington, was nothing if not cautious, and Hooker's suggestions 



THE DEADLY PARALLELS. 507 

•were disapproved of and criticised, till that important general threw up 
his command. General George Gordon Meade was appointed in his 
place, Meade was in his prime, was a good engineer, a determined 
general and a man of experience. He viewed the disposition of the 
Confederate force with some alarm. Longstreet was skirting the Blue 
Ridge. A large part of the Confederate troops were in the Shenandoah 
valley. The Confederate cavalry had already crossed the Potomac, and 
the people of that region were in terror. Harper's Ferry was threat- 
ened, and Meade feared that the eleven thousand men who defended it 
would be caught in the same trap that Mills' men had been ensnared 
in previously. The first thing which he did upon his appointment was, 
therefore, to order the evacuation of Harper's Ferry, and to hasten the 
garrison to Frederick, as a reserve. As soon as General Lee realized 
that Meade was inclined to act with decision, he hastened to call his 
forces together at Gettysburg. This town was approached by many 
different roads, and was, therefore, a good point for concentration. 
Meade followed after Lee cautiously, intending to bring on an engage- 
ment somewhere near Gett^^sburg. At this time — the last of June — 
Lee had seventy-three thousand five hundred men, and Meade about 
eighty-two thousand, while both generals counted eleven thousand cav- 
alry, and were possessed of more cannon than they had any need for. 
The country around Gettysburg is broken into many ridges which run 
north and south. On one of these ridges, just west of the village, there 
stood a theological seminar}-, and between this ridge and the next is 
Willoughby Run, a quiet little stream. Here a detachment of the 
LTnion arm}'^, under General Reynolds, encountered the Confederates 
on the 29th of June. At the very opening of the engagement Gen- 
eral Reynolds was killed by a sharpshooter, and the command fell 
upon Abner Doubleday, Both forces were anxious to reach a high 
piece of ground which was covered with woods, and commanded the 
field. The "Iron Brigade," a most dreaded body of LTnion troops, 
succeeded in capturing it, and the battle began in earnest. The 
struggle was largely for the road which led from that point to 
Gettysburg, and around this the fight was especially obstinate. The 
Union line was indiscreetly stretched out and weakened, Lee was 
being continually reinforced and succeeded in breaking through the 
centre of the line, throwing a part of the Union forces into disorder. 
But the retreat was made slowly, and the ambulances and artillery 
protected. In the midst of this confusion General Hancock came 
with orders from Meade to assume command. His presence restored 



508 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

confidence, and he hastened to form a line along the crest of a ridge, 
placing all the available troops in position. This closed the first day's 
battle. During the night the Union troops were reinforced. Lee spent 
the hours of rest urging his generals to get the army together as rapidly 
as possible, saying that he did not wish to attack the Union troops in 
their strong position on the heights till all his forces were up. The 
second day's battle began with a mistaken arrangement of troops on the 
part of the Union forces. Between the two great ridges ran another 
ridge, which is often described as being like the diagonal portion of a 
capital N. General Sickles advanced his men to this diagonal ridge. 
The position was an unfortunate one. This was perceived immediately 
by the Confederates, and made the first point of attack. General Sickles 
lost a leg, and the situation of the Union troops was made still more 
difficult by this catastrophe. The Union line was driven back, but 
only to force it into a stronger and better position from which it could 
not be dislodged. 

That day is full of stirring events. One of them was the fight 
between two brigades to reach Little Round Top, a height on the ridge 
which formed the Union line. General Weed's brigade, of New York, 
fought against Hood's Texans for the position — the men engaging in 
one of the most frightful hand-to-hand contests of the war. The men 
of both armies lay scattered dead and dying among the rocks. All 
attempt to fire was abandoned, and the fight was kept up with clubbed 
muskets, bayonets and stones. Four distinguished Union officers were 
killed, among them General Weed. Finally, a large part of the Texans 
were captured and the rest forced to retreat. 

After the sun had set and the twilight was deepening, occurred the 
last thrilling incident of the day. It was a charge of Sumpter Hill, by 
two Confederate brigades, led by what was known as the Louisiana 
Tigers. They had never failed at a charge, and were determined not 
to do so now, although they were facing a perfect storm of artillery and 
musketry. They actually marched up in the face of tliat fire till they 
reached the guns, and made a hand-to-hand fight for them. The Union 
troops were reinforced at this moment, and the Confederates fled down 
the hill. Of the over-valorous Tigers, twelve hundred out of the seven- 
teen hundred had fallen, and they were known no more among the 
organizations of the Confederacy. 

On the morning of the third day Lee decided to try piercing the 
centre of Meade's line, since he had tried both flanks and failed. 
Meade anticipated him, however, and attacked early in the morning. 



THE DEADLY PARALLELS. 509 

Once more the lines were drawn up on the two parallel ridges, and the 
day began with a terrible artillery duel. For hours there was nothing 
but a deafening roar, a blinding storm of iron under a cloud of smoke. 
At length Meade's chief of artillery ordered the fire to stop, that the guns 
might cool. Lee naturally supposed that the enemy had exhausted his 
artillery, and fourteen thousand of his best men moved forward steadily 
for a desperate charge. The Union guns reopened fire, and plowed 
throusfh the Confederate columns. But these columns did not halt. 
They closed up and marched on over that mile of ground which lay 
between the ridges. All along the main line of the Union troops lay an 
infantry force, and as the Confederates neared, these sprang to their 
feet and launched a terrific volley of musketry into the right flank. 
The noble columns of the Confederates began to melt, but among them 
were those who would not yield. They came to the very breastworks 
and some of them leaped over them. But they saw at last that their 
enthusiasm had carried them too far, and some of them threw them- 
selves upon the ground and held up their hands for quarter. The fight- 
ing stopped. The Union troops took many prisoners and battle-flags, 
and rested to care for their wounded and bury their dead. There had 
also been a movement between the cavalry, in which neither side had 
gained much. This closed the 3d of July. On the 4th, Lee began his 
retreat, in the midst of a terrible storm and over roads which were 
almost impassable. With them went the terrible train of wounded, 
suffering past all expression in the storm. To the soldierly mind it 
seems reprehensible that Meade did not pursue them ; to the merely 
humane mind it seems as if it would have been little less than fiendish 
to have done so. 

Gettysburg was the turning point of the war. It is said that the 
Confederates lost nearly thirty thousand. The Union loss was twenty- 
three thousand one hundred and ninety killed, wounded and missing. 
The discrepancy in numbers was not so great as to make the cause of 
the South seem hopeless, but there were peculiar characteristics in the 
struggle and the time which made the men of the South fear, and the 
men of the North hope, that the Rebellion would soon be the "lost 
cause. ' ' 

It is necessary now to look toward the West, and follow up the 
course of events which led to the surrender of Vicksburg. This city 
stands on a high bluff" which overlooks the Mississippi. That mighty 
river makes a sharp bend at this point, and sweeps about a long, nar- 
row peninsula. This place commanded two railroads, which were of 



5IO THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

great importance to the Confederates, and as they had lost New Orleans, 
Baton Rouge and Memphis, it was of the greatest importance that they 
should hold Vicksburg. Farragut had gone up the river and demanded 
its surrender, after the taking of New Orleans. The demand was 
refused, and as the admiral had no land force to work with him, he 
could not enforce it. After this it was made strong with fortifications. 
Extensive batteries were planted on the bluffs, and it became almost 
impossible for any sort of craft to run down the river. General Grant 
received a dispatch from General Halleck on the 12 th of November, 
1862, placing him in command of all troops sent to his department, 
and telling him to fight the enemy wherever he pleased. After a con- 
sultation with Sherman, Grant decided to move south with his thirty 
thousand men and fight an equal force commanded by General Joseph 
C. Pemberton, on the Tallahachie. Sherman, with his thirty thousand, 
was to move from Memphis down the eastern bank of the Mississippi, 
and with the assistance of Porter and his gunboats, try to capture 
Vicksburg from the rear. Grant then began moving slowly, wishing to 
keep his enemy as far north as possible, and Sherman and Porter hast- 
ened to carry out their orders. But the plan was entirely ruined by the 
eflfective opposition of two Confederate cavalry detachments, under 
Generals Van Dorn and Forrest. Grant had over two million dollars' 
worth of supplies at Holly Springs, and on the 20th of December Van 
Dorn made a dash at this place, capturing it and its garrison. He also 
burned the stores and the railroad buildings. Forrest tore up a portion 
of the railroad which lay north of Grant's army, thus cutting off all 
communication with the North. Grant was therefore obliged to give 
up his part of the plan, and move back toward Memphis. Sherman 
and Porter did not learn of this disaster, and went on with their prepa- 
rations. On Christmas day the Union troops were well placed and 
began preparing for attack. A large part of them were opposite the 
bluffs north of Vicksburg. These bluffs they crowned wnth artiller}', 
and as Sherman felt sure that Grant was holding Pemberton, and that 
the force on Vicksburg Heights could not be large, he had no hesitation 
in opening attack. On the 29th of December the battle was opened 
with a heavy artillery fire, followed by musketry and a rush of the men. 
The guns at the foot of the bluff swept them, and a cross fire from the 
heights poured down upon them. But quite a large detachment of 
Union troops succeeded in reaching the bluff. Once there they could 
not return, and they scooped niches in the bank with their hands and 
hid themselves, while the enemy came to the very edge of the hill and 



THE DEADLY PARALLELS. 511 

fired down upon them. They were obliged to remain in this very 
uncertain position until nightfall. Sherman lost one thousand eight 
hundred and forty-two men in this assault, while the Confederates suf- 
fered but slightly. The other plans which he laid for assault were 
defeated by accidents of weather, and as he was in a country which was 
inundated with water every year to the depth of ten feet, here-embarked 
his men and steamed down the river, anxious to know what had hap- 
pened to Grant. 

At the beginning of 1863 General McClernand was given command of 
the two corps commanded by Generals Sherman and Morgan. The first 
movement made by this united force was against Arkansas Post. This 
was a Confederate hold on the Arkansas, which made it dangerous for 
boats on the Mississippi, near the mouth of the former river. Sherman 
saw there could be little safety till the post was captured. He therefore 
persuaded McClernand to attack it with the whole army, including 
Porter's command. On the loth of January they were below the fort, 
and had driven back the pickets. The Confederates aroused themselves 
for defense, and spent the night throwing up a long line of works. 
The next day the Union troops swept forward to the attack and were 
aided by the gunboats on the river. This fire continued but a few 
moments, when white flags and rags fluttered all along the Confederate 
lines. Immediately the firing ceased, and the garrison, numbering 
about forty-eight hundred, were taken prisoners. The fort was 
destroyed. McClernand was not able to pursue his plans further, for 
Grant commanded him to hasten back to the Mississippi. Grant had 
now been given personal command over the operations on the Missis- 
sippi. His first act was to divide his force into four corps, commanded 
by Generals McPherson, Hurlburt, Sherman and McClernand. Hurl- 
burt's force was left to hold the lines east of Memphis, and all the other 
troops were joined in the river e:^pedition. The plan was now to besiege 
Vicksburg. To follow up the forty-seven days of siege would be tedious 
and painful. Now the men dug canals, now they mined. At times an 
expedition picked its way through the deadly swamps by the light of 
tallow candles. Again they were hemmed in the barricaded rivers, 
with the enemy in front and behind them. Grant tried half a dozen 
plans, and failed in all. The Confederates showed not only courage, 
but the greatest ingenuity, and they kept themselves apprised of Grant's 
every movement. On the night of April i6th, the Union fleet ran by 
the batteries of Vicksburg, and returned the heavy fire directed against 
them. Grant searched for some time before he found a suitable place to 



512 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



cross the ]\Iississippi, and finally decided upon Bruinsburg. McCler- 
nand's corps went first, and marched on Fort Gibson on the 30th of 
April. The enemy was found in a strong position three miles west of 
that fort, and after a hard day's fight, the Confederates retreated, burning 
their bridges behind them. Grant established his base at Grand Gulf, 




VIEW OF A COTXOM CHUiK. 



where there were fortifications which the Confederates had deserted. 
He sent a division after the retreating Confederates, and pressed on 
with all the rest of his army. These numbered about forty-one thou- 
sand men, and were increased a few days later to forty-five thousand, 
Pemberton had about fifty-one thousand. 

Simultaneous with these preparations was Grierson's brilliant raid 



THE DEADLY PARALLELS. 513 

through the Southwestern States. Colonel Benjamin H. Grierson com- 
manded a cavalry of seventeen hundred men. These rode through the 
State of Mississippi doing what damage they could to bridges, railroads 
and supplies, and dismaying the people by their rapid and unexpected 
movements. For sixteen days they plunged through rivers, swamps, 
forests and fields, and at the end of that time rode into Baton Rouge, 
with the men half dead from fatigue aud lack of sleep. 

Grant engaged in a number of heavy skirmishes as he moved toward 
Vicksburg, and took possession of two towns, in one of which were the 
factories which turned out goods for the Confederacy. These Sherman 
absolutely destroyed. On the 15th of May occurred the battle of 
Champion's Hill, which was the bloodiest of the campaign. At the 
end of the battle Pemberton retreated across the Big Black river, leav- 
ing his dead and wounded behind him — over three thousand. Another 
heavy skirmish occurred on the bank of the Big Black river, and the 
Union troops added eighteen guns to the thirty which they had captured 
at Champion's Hill. Bridges were now constructed that the men might 
cross the stream. These were made of rafts, of trees and cotton bales, 
and Sherman and Grant sat side by side on a log, watching their men as 
they passed by night over the swaying structures. Vicksburg was well 
protected on the land, as well as on the water side, and Pemberton 
hastened to strengthen himself in the village, while Grant followed 
close behind. Sherman went to Haine's Bluff, where he had been 
defeated before. The other commands stretched out from Sherman's 
left. Grant feared an attack from the rear, for General Johnston's 
force was behind him, and he therefore hastened to make an assault, 
with the intention of carrying the works by storm. This was on the 
2 2d of May. His men rushed up the breastworks and succeeded in 
planting some flags, but not in holding them, and Grant was finally 
forced to admit the assault a failure, and withdraw his men. Then he 
began the siege by regular approaches. Day and night the guns poured 
shells into the city, till the citizens dug caves in the soft clay banks 
and took refuge in them. Very hungry were the people of Vicksburg, 
and still hungrier the exhausted soldiers, but it was not till the 4th of 
July, 1863, that Pemberton yielded to the demand for unconditional 
surrender. The Confederate army was fed from the knapsacks of the 
Union troops, and immediately paroled and furnished with means for 
reaching their homes. 

The news of this important victory- was received everywhere in 
the North with the greatest satisfaction and demonstrations of rejoicing 



514 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

by the supporters of the Union cause. It was, indeed, an important 
event in the histor}- of the war, as it gave the Union army undisputed 
possession of the Mississippi river to the Gulf. 

FOR FURTHER READING; 
History— Bates' "Battle of Gettysburg." 

Coppee's "Grant and'His Campaigns." 

Glazier's "Three Years in the Federal Cavalry." 

Headley's "Grant's Sherman." 

LongboVough's "Cave Life in Vicksburg." 

Bullock'.s "Secret Ser%-ice of the Confederacy." 

Burnham's "United States Secret Ser\nce." 
Fiction— \V. H. Peck's "Confederate Flag on the Ocean." 

M. Remick's "Great Baiile Year." 

M. Remick's "Forward with the Flag." 
Poetry— Bret Harte's "John Burns of Gettysburg.'- 



CHAPTER XCIII. 



>l^a HhH^ 



r$. 



WHY THE WAR DID NOT END AFTER GETTYSBURG THE NEW YORK 

RIOTS — ATROCITIES IN THE SOUTH — SOUTH- 
^^ ERN PRISON PENS. 



^OW that two great Confederate armies had sur- 
rendered it would seem to the observer as if there 
was little excuse for continuing the war. But 
from its beginning the American nation has been 
ruled by popular opinion. Most of its wars have 
been for principle, and it has delighted in nothing 
more than in great controversies. The popular conscience 
is a thing which has constantly to be taken into consid- 
eration. The "Southern idea" was not yet conquered. 
It flourished in the North as well as in the South, and 
every thinking soldier and politician knew that, should 
the war be discontinued at this point, it would only mean 
a renewal of the old troublous legislation, and in the 
end another resort to arms. Practically, the Confederacy 
was becoming weak. Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and 
West Virginia, all slaves States, sympathized with the Government. 
The largest city of the Confederacy had long been held by Union troops. 
But it was not territory and men alone which were to be conquered, but 
ideas as well. In the North, a large number of men made themselves 
conspicuous by leading a party opposed to the Government, and by 
delivering speeches which were as treasonable as they were heartless. 
Among these was ex-President Franklin Pierce, of New Hampshire. 
These men misrepresented the Union cause, the patient, and much-tried 
President, and the spirit which prompted a continuation of the war. 
These speeches inflamed the common people, and brought about, among 
other catastrophes, the New York riots. 

Drafts had been ordered in several of the States, for the volunteer 




;i6 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



system had not latterly furnished enough men. A law provided that 
any man whose name was drawn, and who did not wish to go into the 
service, could get a substitute, or pay three hundred dollars to the 
Government and be released. In the South, every man could easily 




HORACK GREELEY. 



go into the service, for there were slaves at home to keep the farms 
tilled and the stores open, but in the North it was necessary that a large 
portion of the men should always remain at home, and the substitute 
system was arranged to accommodate this need. The opposition party 



THE MARTYRS. 517 

misinterpreted this arrangement and said that the Government demanded 
three hundred dollars, or the life of the man whom it drafted. On the 
other hand, the arrangement had been made simply as a protection for 
these men, and when the clause was repealed to satisfy the opposition 
party, the price of substitutes went from three hundred to a thousand 
dollars — a sum which few workingmen were able to pay. In April, 
1863, a levy of three hundred thousand men was called for, with the 
alternative of a draft, in case the quotas were not filled by volunteers. 
That of New York fell short, and a draft was begun. New York was 
largely Democratic, and several of the most influential papers were in 
favor of the opposition. From the very beginning of the draft, excite- 
ment was noticeable in the city, and the marshals who tried to take the 
names and addresses of those subject to call were threatened with 
violence. On the i3tli of July the draft-wheel was set in motion, at the 
corner of Third avenue and Forty-sixth street, and in a short time the 
building was surrounded by a surging, loud-voiced crowd. In a short 
time they had stopped the street cars and made a blockade in the streets. 
They finally entered the marshal's office, driving the policemen and 
officers out at the back windows. They then burned the building and 
prevented the firemen from throwing any water upon it. The superin- 
tendent of police was stoned and clubbed till he was a shapeless mass of 
bruises, and the defence of the city for the remainder of the riot was 
conducted by Commissioner Thomas C. Acton and Inspector Daniel 
Carpenter. Another marshal's office was entered in the same way, and 
the whole block of stores about it was burned. The police and the mob 
encountered each other through the day in a street fight, and the police 
were defeated. Some of them were stabbed by people in the crowd, 
others stoned, and many shot. The mob succeeded, before the close of 
the afternoon, in getting possession of the gun factory. As evening 
approached a great procession marched down Broadway, with ' 'no draft' ' 
inscribed upon its banners, and armed in a most motley manner. 
Inspector Carpenter, with two hundred policemen, who had orders to 
take no prisoners, but to strike quick and hard, met them on Broadway, 
A few minutes of fierce fighting followed, and the mob fled. For two 
days longer the riot continued. The mob murdered eleven negroes, who 
had committed no offence except that of being black. They sacked and 
burned the Colored Orphan Asylum, and the two hundred little children 
barely escaped by the rear doors, as the mob broke in at the front. 
They surged around the office of the Tribune^ which was edited by 
Horace Greely, and tried to set fire to it, but the printers ran board 



5i8 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



troughs out of the windows with the intention of dropping bombs from 
them upon the crowd below. The mob guessed at their ominous 
significance and hastened away. On the second day a small military 
force assisted the police. When it was seen that no quarter could be 
expected from the mob, the police and military fought without com- 
punction, and killed wherever they could. In one disreputable 
neighborhood, the police were fired upon from the windows and roofs, 




THE TOMBS PRISON, NEW YORK CITY. 



and they entered the tenement houses in squads, searched them from 
top to bottom, killed the people with the bayonet or club, and flung 
them out of the windows or over the bannisters. Those three days were 
indescribably horrible. Many of the incidents will not bear relating. 
Colonel Henry J. O'Brien, of the Eleventh New York Volunteers, 
was captured by the mob, and tortured in the most terrible way for 
hours, and finally killed by some maddened women. It was thought 



THE MARTYRS. 519 

that men of wealth and standing were disguised among those who led 
the mob. By the end of the three days, between two and three million 
dollars' worth of property had been destroyed, fifty policemen had been 
injured, and eighteen people killed by the rioters. On the other hand 
more than twelve hundred of the mob had been slain. 

Throughout the South the cruelest outrages were perpetrated upon 
Union men who chanced to live in a Southern district. It is said that 
in Texas alone, between two and three thousand citizens were hanged, 
who were known to sympathize with the Union cause, and to refuse to 
uphold secession. The Governor of Texas permitted these barbarities, 
and encouraged the people of the State to commit them. One woman 
was hanged to a tree in sight of her little children for wishing that the 
Union army would hurr>' to Texas and end the war, that her husband 
might come home. In the border States, these cruelties were very 
frequent, especially in East Tennessee. Not only were the lives of 
quiet citizens taken by men in the Confederate uniform, but houses 
were burned, children tortured, and women subjected to every sort of 
suffering. The papers of the South advised "bushwhacking," and 
every sort of partisan fight. The black flag was not unfrequently 
raised, and the people who fought under it gave no quarter to any one, 
regardless of sex, age or condition. The Confederate Congress went so 
far as to organize bands of partisan rangers, who were entitled to the 
same pay, rations and quarters as other soldiers. These were known as 
Guerrillas, and their purpose was to terrorize the country and murder 
and steal, but to claim the protection of the Confederate government, 
as honorable prisoners of war, whenever they were captured. The very 
least of the crimes committed b}- these bands was to destroy everything 
in and about the houses by which they passed, and to steal the horses 
and cattle. That there were instances of intolerance at the North, no 
one pretends to deny, but it principally took the form of social ostracism. 

It seems hardly necessary to go over the dark chapter which records 
the doings in Southern prisons. The sufferings of the men there were 
notorious. The civilized world has never seen such premeditated and 
deliberate cruelty. Most of the commissioned officers captured by the 
Confederate army were placed in Libby warehouse, at Richmond, and 
at Columbia, South Carolina. The non-commissioned officers and pri- 
vates were kept in camps, at Andersonville and Milan, Georgia; at 
Tyler, Texas, at Salisbury, North Carolina, at Florence, South Caro- 
lina, and at Belle Isle, in the James River, at Richmond. With the 
exception of Libby, these were open stockades, with but little shelter. 



520 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

That at Andersonville, which is particularly famous for its horrors, 
consisted of twenty acres of ground, afterwards enlarged to thirty, 
enclosed in a palisade of pine logs fifteen feet high. One hundred and 
twenty feet outside was another palisade, and between the two walked 
the guards. A slight railing, known as the "dead line," ran inside of 
the inner stockade, about twenty feet from it. Any prisoner who came 
too near this line was immediately shot. A tiny stream of slow- running 
water was the only supply the men had for drinking, cooking or wash- 
ing. There was no need for selecting the stockades in a place without 
trees, as there were plenty of trees within sight. The whole was built 
under the direction of General William S. Winder, who had stated it as 
his intention to build the pen so as to destroy more Yankees than could 
be destroyed at the front. Mr. Davis and the Confederate Congress 
knew of the sufferings of the prisoners at Andersonville, and resisted 
the appeals of more humane men among the Confederates to have them 
lessened. At one time there were thirty-three thousand prisoners in 
the stockade, which gave a space of about four feet square to each man. 
Here the men wasted to skeletons, and died of the most terrible dis- 
eases. Many of them went mad, others became imbecile; many were 
shot wantonly; not unfrequently they walked to the dead line for the 
express purpose of inviting death. They called it "being exchanged." 
Many escaped from the various prisons, but though they were aided by 
the negroes, they were usually tracked and brought back. Bloodhounds 
were kept for this especial purpose. By 1864, the prisons were crowded 
to overflowing, owing to the fact that exchanges of prisoners had been 
stopped. This was because the Confederate authorities would not 
exchange any black soldiers or their white officers captured in battle, 
and the United States Government, being bound to protect equally all 
who entered its service, refused to exchange at all. The people of the 
South never felt it necessar}- to show any honor in fighting the blacks. 
This was shown in a most cowardly and inhuman way, at Fort Pillow, 
April 12, 1864. This fort was forty miles above Memphis, on the 
Mississippi. It stood upon a high bluff with a ravine on each side. A 
little village and some Government buildings nestled in the lower 
ravine. The place had a garrison of five hundred and fifty men, nearly 
half of whom were colored, commanded by Major L. F. Booth. At 
sunrise the fort was attacked by the Confederate General Forrest, with 
five thousand men. A brave advance was made, which was assisted by 
the gunboat New Era^ which swept the ravine. Major Booth was 
killed, but the fort stood firm, and the besiegers finally sent in a flag of 



THK MARTYRS. 



521 



truce demanding a surrender. Under cover of this flag they moved up 
into positions nearer the fort, and then sent in a second flag. Surrender 
was refused, and they took advantage of their close position to the fort 
to rush over the works with a cry of "no quarter." The garrison threw 




FLIGHT OF NEGROES FROM FORT PILLOW. 



down their arms and surrendered, but no mercy was shown them. 
The sick and wounded were murdered in their tents; the women and 
children were shot or put to the sword. At least three hundred persons 
were butchered after the surrender. It goes without sa}'ing that the 



522 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

more honorable officers of the Confederate army were as shocked as the 
rest of the civilized world at Forrest's treacherous action. 

Another reason that the exchange of prisoners had been discontinued 
was that the Confederates did not observe their paroles. The thirty 
thousand men taken by Grant at Vicksburg, and the six thousand taken 
by Banks at Port Hudson, in July, 1863, were released on parole, with 
the understanding that they were not to fight again during the war unless 
properly exchanged. Three months later the Confederate commissioner 
of exchange declared them all released from their parole, and they were 
restored to the ranks. 

President Lincoln's kind heart was greatly distressed over the compli- 
cations of this prison question. On one hand he grieved to think of the 
thousands of men actually rotting in the pestiferous Southern prisons, and 
on the other hand, he objected to exchanging the well-fed Confederate 
prisoners for the skeletons sent up from the Southern stockades. In 
vain did the people of the North try to send supplies to their suffering 
friends in Libby and Andersonville, and the rest of the prisons. The sup- 
plies seldom or never reached the men, and at Libby, where the boxes for 
the prisoners arrived at the rate of three hundred a week, they were packed 
up in warehouses within sight of the famished and shivering wretches who 
could not reach the things prepared for them. The total number of 
soldiers and citizens captured by the Confederate armies during the war 
was 188,145. About half of these were actually confined in prisons, 
where the number of death was 36,401. The number of Confederates 
captured by the Northern forces was 476, 169, of whom 227, 570 were actu- 
ally confined. The percentage of death in the Confederate prisons was 
over thirty-eight; in the Northern prisons it was thirteen and five one- 
hundredths. That the Confederate soldier was often without necessary 
provisions is sometimes urged as an excuse for the treatment of the pris- 
oners in his hands. But if prisoners could not be provided for, then 
they should not have been taken, and it should be remembered, too, 
that the prisoners would not have suffered nearly so much as they did, 
had the supplies sent them from the North been delivered. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

HISTORY — Foote's "Fort IMlIow Massacre." 

Burbiere's "Scraps from thf Prison Table." 
Harding's "Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison." 
Glazier's "Capture, Prison-Pen and I-Ncape." 
Stuart's "SuflrerinRS of Prisoners of War." 
Cavada's "Liliby I^ife." 
Harris' "PrisouLifc in Richmond." 
Fiction— Anna Dickinson's "What Answer." 
Mrs. Terhunc's "Sunny Bank." 
J. T. Trowbridge's "Cu'djo's Cave." 



CHAPTER XCIV. 



'HE SIEGE OE CHARLESTON — DUPONT'S DEFEAT — GILMORE'S SIEGE- 
THE "SWAMP angel" — MORGAN'S RAIDS. 




HE siege of Charleston touched the Confederacy at 
its tenderest point. The idea of secession had been 
born and nursed in Charleston, and the people of 
the South felt an exceeding tenderness for it on 
that account. For the same reasons the people of 
the North were especially desirous to have it suflfer 
the utmost penalty of war. At one time the Gov- 
ernment had sunk several old whale ships, loaded with 
stone, into the channel, for the purpose of closing the 
harbor — a harbor most useful to the Confederacy. But 
in a short time these old hulks sank harmlessly into the 
sand, or were swept away, and it was necessary to keep a 
dozen war vessels to sustain the blockade. As the main 
channel was protected by Confederate batteries, this was 
no easy matter. After a time this channel was closed by 
the occupation by Union troops of Morris' Island, but even this did not 
keep the blockade runners from slipping in by the other passes. The 
blockading vessels were openly attacked in January, 1863. 

The attack was made by two Confederate iron-clads, which soon 
disabled two Union vessels and were only driven away when the rest of 
the fleet came to their aid. The Government was now more determined 
than ever to capture the port, and use the harbor as a refuge for Union 
vessels. A strong fleet was fitted out for this purpose, and placed under 
command of Rear- Admiral S. F. DuPont. This fleet consisted of seven 
monitors, an iron-clad frigate, an iron-clad ram, and several wooden 
gunboats. Choosing a fortunate day, DuPont steamed in to attack the 
forts on April 7, 1863. 



524 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Nothing had been left undone for the defense of the city. Numer- 
ous batteries had been erected. Fort Sunipter was occupied, and many 
powerful guns of English manufacture placed where they would be of 
the most use. Piles and chains obstructed the channels, which were 
otherwise endangered to the Union troops by innumerable torpedoes, 
some of which were arranged to explode whenever a vessel should run 
against them, while others were to be fired by electric wires from the 
forts. The main channel between Fort Moultrie and Fort Sumpter was 
crossed by a heavy cable supported by empty barrels. In the south 
channel a wide opening had been left in the row of piles, and offered a 
temptation to the Union vessels, which it was hoped they could not 
resist, for beneath the water were several tons of powder connected with 
an electric wire. These dangers were not unsuspected by DuPont, but 
he had no hesitation in sending his monitor IVeehawken out on the 
morning of April 17th, to prove what the situation might be. As soon 
as the WeeJiawkcn had become slightly entangled among the network 
of chains — she was incumbered with a great raft pushed before her to 
explode the torpedoes — the batteries opened all around her, and she and 
the other monitors which hurried to her aid were the center of a terrific 
shower of iron and bursting shells. One monitor, the Keokuk, which 
had approached quite near to the enemy, was struck nearly one hundred 
times. That evening she sank in an inlet. Most of the other vessels 
were badly injured, and the fleet had to confess itself defeated. 

Two months later the Union forces had a victory on the sea which 
somewhat counterbalanced this defeat. The Ai/anta^ a Confederate 
ironclad, was sent out to sink the monitors and raise the blockade of 
Charleston. She dropped down the channel on June 17th, and following 
her came two steamers loaded with citizens, among whom were many 
ladies. These felt a very natural interest in her, as the ladies of 
Charleston had contributed their jewels to pay for her completion. 
The Wechaivkcn was the first monitor to approach her. F'ive shots 
were fired from her enormous eleven-inch and fifteen-inch guns. Those 
five shots, each directed at a vital point of the Atlanta, disabled her, and 
she hung out a white flag and surrendered. DuPont's fleet took her to 
Philadelphia, where she was exhibited as a curiosity. She was provis- 
ioned for a long cruise, and carried a huge torpedo from the end of a 
beam thirty feet long, projecting from her bow under water. 

vShortly after this. General Quincy A. Gilmore was sent from the 
North, with a large force, to take the city of Charleston. This city, 
bordered by miles of swampy ground, had many natural protections 



THE SWAMP ANGEL. 525 

against an assaulting enemy. Gilmore decided to approach the city by 
way of Folly and Morris Islands, where he could be protected by the 
monitors. His first work was to erect powerful batteries on Folly 
Island. On the most northern point of Folly Island was the Confed- 
erate battery Gregg. South of this was Fort Wagner, and still farther 
south were other works. Gilmore' s battery on Folly Island had been 
erected behind a grove of trees, and on the morning of July loth, these 
were suddenly cut down, and Gilmore opened fire upon the most south- 
ernly work on Morris Island, while the fleet — now commanded by 
Admiral Dalhgren — bombarded Fort Wagner. Troops were landed 
under protection of this fire, but as the day was unbearably hot, no 
advance was made on Fort Wagner until the following morning. The 
assault was repulsed and the Union troops retired to their earthworks. 
A week later another assault was made, being led by the first regi- 
ment of colored troops (the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts) that had ever 
been raised on the authorization that accompanied the proclamation of 
emancipation. They led the advance by their own request, with an 
evident desire to settle, once for all, the question of negro bravery. 
Though fire from all the Confederate batteries was opened upon them 
and their ranks thinned every second, they marched steadily on, crossed 
the ditch before Fort Wagner waist-deep in water, while musketry 
poured down upon them and hand-grenades were exploded in their 
midst, and even climbed up to the rampart. Here they were hurled 
back. Their young commander. Colonel Robert G. Shaw, and fifteen 
hundred of their men were killed. The experiment was too costly to 
repeat. General Gilmore now approached Fort Wagner by regular 
parallels. By August 17th, a dozen breeching batteries of enormous 
rifle guns were established and directed against Fort Sumpter, which at 
the end of a week was a shapeless mass of ruins. The parallels were 
pushed forward still further toward Fort Wagner, partly through ground 
so low that the higher tides washed over it. The ironclad frigate New 
Ironsides assisted in the bombardment, and strong calcium lights were 
thrown upon the fort, and kept an eternal day there. The Confederates 
suddenly abandoned Fort Wagner, and Battery Gregg, at the north of 
Morris Island, was also deserted. Fort Sumpter still furnished a deso- 
late shelter for some of the Confederate infantry, and these defended it 
against a few hundred sailors from the Union fleet, who tried to capture 
it. To bombard the city itself was the next move. General Gilmore 
selected a site on the western side of Morris Island, and placed the work 
in the hands of a captain who was told that he must not fail. The 



526 THE STORY OF AMERICA 

ground was soft mud sixteen feet deep, and the task of establishing a 
battery there seemed impossible. But piles were driven and a platform 
laid upon them, a parapet built of sixteen thousand bags of sand, and 
an eight-inch rifle gun was dragged across the swamp and placed upon 
the platform. All of this work Avas done in the night, and when 
accomplished was still at the disadvantage of being five miles from 
Charleston. But the "swamp angel," as the soldiers called the gun, 
would be able to reach the lower part of the city. Late in August it 
opened fire. As a protection to the city, the Confederate authorities 
selected from their prisoners fifty officers, and placed them in a district 
reached by the shells. With what mingled feelings these imprisoned 
Union officers awaited the first rumble of the "swamp angel" can be 
imagined. By placing an equal number of Confederate officers under 
fire, the Government forced the removal of its own. At the thirty-sixth 
discharge the "swamp angel" burst, and was never replaced. 

So wide was the theatre of action in the Rebellion that it is impos- 
sible to make a consecutive story of it, since it is constantly necessary 
to return and take up the broken threads of the narrative at neglected 
points. 

In the West, during the spring and summer of 1863, there were other 
events of interest besides Grant's siege of Vicksburg. In a war of less 
magnitude they would have been of great interest. As it was, they 
were thought little of, and soon forgotten. For weeks Generals Rose- 
crans and Bragg sat warily watching each other. Detachments from 
both armies made destructive raids and opposed each other in numerous 
minor engagements. Morgan, the Confederate guerrilla, won a reputa- 
tion for his raid across Ohio, with a force of three thousand cavalry. 
After committing many atrocities, he was at last met and defeated by 
the home guards of Ohio. The incidents of his raids are romantic, 
and have been the subjects of many poems and tales. 

FOR FURTHER READING : 
History— Batten's "Two Years in the United States Army." 

Earlv's "Last Year of the War." 

Pollard's "Last Year of the War." 
Fiction— J. T. Trowbridge's "The Three Scouts." 

J. T. Trowbridge's "The linunmer Boy." 

W. H. Thomas' "Running the Blockade." 
Poetry — George H. Boker's "Black Regiment." 

Phoebe Gary's "Hero of Fort Wagner.'' 



u 



CHAPTER XCV. 

•^1 ^xmr rtf I^b Jlanir/' 



CAMPAIGN AT THE WEST BETWEEN GENERALS ROSECRANS AND 
BRAGG — BATTLE OF CHICKAMAUGA — BATTLE OF CHAT- 
TANOOGA — THE SANITARY AND CHRISTIAN 
COMMISSIONERS. 



ATE in the summer of 1863, Rosecrans, who had 
been quietly keeping Bragg on the defensive, 
began to move. He forced Bragg to fall back 
from one point to another, all the way from Tul- 
lahoma to Chattanooga. Rosecrans wished to 
get possession of Chattanooga, and when Bragg 
crossed the Tennessee, and once more turned to 
face the Union army at that point, Rosecrans set down 
to force him out of it. This he did by a strategy, and 
the Union troops hastened to take possession of the 
town. Rosecrans supposed that Bragg was in full 
retreat, but the Confederate general received reinforce- 
ments, and turning at Lafayette, waited for Rosecrans, 
and on September 19th and 20th was fought the battle 
of Chickamauga, on the river of that name. Long- 
street had joined Bragg on the i8th, and the latter general now had 
about seventy thousand men under his command. Rosecrans had about 
fifty-five thousand. Bragg was the attacking party. His plan was to 
make a feint on the Union right, and at the same time to fall heavily 
upon the left, crush it, seize the roads that led to Chattanooga, and thus 
shut off Rosecrans' supplies. But the Union left was commanded by 
General George H. Thomas, who is said to have been one of the best 
corps commanders produced by either side in the whole war, and espe- 
cially formidable in a fight where stubbornness and endurance were the 
qualities most needed. Throughout the day there was a series of bloody 
charges. General Leonidas Polk was directly opposed to Thomas, and 




528 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

he led on his men fiercely hour after hour. Upon both sides there was 
terrible mortality, and large numbers of prisoners were taken. When 
night closed the situation was altered but little. The next day the 
battle continued to sway back and forth between Polk and Thomas. In 
the afternoon, however, the tide of battle took another direction. A 
fatal gap was made in the right wing of the Union lines, brought about 
by a carelessly written and misinterpreted order. Longstreet hastened 
to pour six divisions of his men through this gap. Rosecrans became 
bewildered, and drove fiercely to Chattanooga to make arrangements 
for getting his broken forces there. Thomas still stood firm, although 
the rest of the army was in disorder, and the Confederates, now sure of 
victory, poured up with a reckless disregard of life. As dusk fell, the 
ammunition was exhausted, and the last furious charge of the Confed- 
erates was repelled with the bayonet. From this time on Thomas was 
called the "Rock of Chickamauga. " In the night he fell back to 
Rossville, where Sheridan joined him in the morning, and together 
they marched to Chattanooga to strengthen the defenses of that city. 
Here they found the rest of the army under Rosecrans. The Union 
loss in the two days' battle of Chickamauga was sixteen thousand two 
hundred and thirty-six. The Confederate loss was between nineteen 
and twenty thousand. With the exception of Gettysburg, it was the 
most destructive battle of the war. Bragg advanced to positions on 
Lookout IMountain and IVIissionary Ridge, putting the town in a state of 
siege. He stopped the navigation of the river below, and cut off all of 
Rosecrans' routes of supply, except one long and rude wagon road. 
For over a month these opposing armies rested and reorganized. The 
departments of the Ohio, the Cumberland and Tennessee were united 
under the title of the Military Division of the Mississippi, of which 
General Grant was made commander, and Thomas was put in the place 
of Rosecrans in command of the Army of the Cumberland. On the 
23d of October Grant arrived at Chattanooga. He found the men on 
short rations, discouraged and restless. Great numbers of horses and 
mules were dead, and Chattanooga was seriously threatened by Bragg' s 
army. The first thing which Grant did was to open a better line of 
supply. He had a road built to Bridgeport, where steamers could reach 
it. In five days this line was completed, and the "Cracker Line" as 
the soldiers called it, was opened, and supplies of all sorts were abundant. 
The Confederate line was stretched out twelve miles long. It ran 
across Chattanooga valley, and rested its flank on the northern end of 
Lookout Mountain and Missionary Ridge. The Confederates were also 



''THE RIVER OF THE DEAD." 529 

intrenched upon the crests of these mountains. Longstreet, with 
twenty thousand men, had been detached from Bragg' s army and sent 
against Burnside, at Knoxville. Sherman had joined Grant and swelled 
the force to about eighty thousand men. Sherman was placed on the 
left wing on the north side of the Tennessee, opposite the head of Mis- 
sionary Ridge; Thomas in the centre across the Chattanooga valley, 
and Hooker's men swept around the right at the base of Lookout 
Mountain. It was one of the most beautiful spots which the war 
desecrated. Sherman, who was famous for laying bridges, constructed 
two across the Tennessee on the night of November 20th, and the next 
day he crossed the river and advanced rapidly upon the enemy's works 
at Missionary Ridge. The ground made fighting very difficult, and 
Sherman only succeeded partly in his undertaking. Hooker swept 
around the base of Lookout Mountain, and ordered his men up the 
steeps. They pushed on toward the heights in the face of the Confed- 
erate troops, made their way through the clouds that hung below the 
crest of the mountain, and disappeared above them to the very summit. 
Such of the enemy at that point as were not taken prisoners escaped 
down the mountains. This is known as Hooker's battle above the 
clouds. On the following day (the 25th), Grant ordered Thomas to 
press forward. He did so, walking right into the line of the Confed- 
erate works at the base of Missionary Ridge, and following the retreating 
Confederates closely up the slope. He swept on till he reached the 
summit and turned Bragg' s own guns upon his defeated men. The 
Union lost about six thousand men, and the Confederates about ten 
thousand men in this battle. Bragg took the remainder of his army to 
Dalton, Georgia, where the command was assumed by General Joseph 
E. Johnston. After the close of this romantic campaign, a large detach- 
ment of men was sent to the relief of Burnside, at Knoxville, and 
Longstreet, who was opposed to this force, then withdrew to Virginia. 
Long before this time the war had been robbed of some of its horrors 
by the efforts of the Sanitary and Christian Commissions. It was here 
that the women played their not unimportant part in the war. From 
the very first they had been anxious to assist the cause. Their personal 
sacrifices were great. Not only did they cheerfully give up the men 
dear to them, but thousands of them supported themselves in order that 
their husbands might leave them. They sacrificed many comforts, and 
organized many money-making schemes to swell the army fund. With 
the first call for troops in April, 1861, the women held meetings in 
many places for the purpose of organizing their efibrts and resources. 



530 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Out of such meetings finally grew the Women's Central Association of 
Relief, which had its birth in New York, under a constitution written 
by Dr. Bellows, who was chosen its president. A committee was sent 
to Washington to offer the services of the organization to the Govern- 
ment, and to learn in what way it could be most useful. The 
Government did not receive the offer kindly. Even I\Ir. Lincoln 
thought that such an organization might embarrass, rather than aid the 
cause. But permission was at length obtained for the formation of a 
commission of inquiry' and advice in respect to the sanitary interests of 
the United States forces. This commission met with every sort of 
discouragement. The officers united in looking upon the matter with 
distrust. The first work of this organization was to have the volunteer 
forces reinspected, and many of the men, physically unfit for service, 
discharged. Its chief purpose was to form depots for receiving supplies 
of clothing, medicines and delicacies for the camps and hospitals, and 
forwarding them hastily. Local societies were formed by women all 
through the North, and managed entirely by them. Of the fifteen 
million dollars' worth of articles received and distributed, more than 
four-fifths came from these seven thousand local societies. The 
commission soon won the admiration of everyone in the military 
service. It helped select sites for camps, regulated drainage, inspected 
cooking, constructed model pavilion hospitals to prevent the spread of 
contagion, and established a system of soldiers' homes, where the sick 
and convalescent could be cared for on their way to and from their 
homes. The hospitals, from being dirty and ill-cared for, became 
models of order and cleanliness. Hospital steamers were fitted up and 
put on the Mississippi and its tributaries, to ply between the seat of war 
and the points from which northern hospitals could be reached. A 
hospital car was invented in which the stretchers that the wounded were 
brought upon from the field could be hung, and thus become a sort of 
hammock. The car was built with extra springs, that the jolting might 
be reduced, and trains of them were run regularh' with physicians and 
stores on board. The commission had several large depots at con- 
venient points, where articles were assorted and labeled, and the army 
officers were kept informed of the articles which could be supplied. 
Gardens were planted by the commission and vegetables raised for the 
use of the soldiers in the field. Supplies of all sorts were kept in 
constant readiness, in case the Government supplies should be delayed. 
Sometimes the agents of the commission were actually on the battle 
field with their supplies, and at the front rescuing the wounded. From 



"THE RIVER OF THE DEAD." 53I 

almost even- home in the North came something to aid the commission; 
if not money, then food, clothing, lint, and all sorts of valuables 
which could be sold, such as diamonds, watches, live stock, carriages, 
etc. Fairs were held, at which large amounts of money were raised. 
From the State of California alone came one million three hundred 
thousand dollars. This was sent largely by men who, being too far 
from the seat of the war to engage in the conflict, wished to aid the 
Government so far as lay in their power. This generous contribution 
from the loyal people of California proved of timely need to the com- 
mission in their work of ameliorating the condition of the soldiers in 
the field. 

In course of time the Christian Commission was organized. This 
met with the approval of the military officers, but did not awaken much 
enthusiasm among the people at first. In May, 1862, it was able to 
send out but fourteen delegates, ten of whom were clergymen, but these 
were received with such favor by the men, that four hundred delegates 
were sent to the army before the end of the year, and more than a 
thousand were engaged in the home work. Bibles and hymn books 
were distributed by the tens of thousands, and newspapers and maga- 
zines placed in every camp. Twenty-three libraries were formed, over 
one hundred and forty thousand dollars expended in money, and an 
equal value of stores distributed. Chapel tents and chapel roofs were 
soon furnished to the armies, diet kitchens established in the hospitals, 
and schools opened for the children of colored soldiers. The writing 
of letters for the wounded men in the hospitals was not the least 
of the work. A coffee wagon was invented and given to the commis- 
sion. Coffee could be made in large quantities in this as it was driven 
along. The commission supported its own delegates absolutely, and in 
the course of its existence sent out six thousand delegates. One 
hundred and twenty of these were women employed mainly in the diet 
kitchens. Dr. Bellows was president of the Sanitary Commission, 
Frederick Olmsted secretary, and George T. Strong treasurer. The 
executive committee of the Christian Commission had George H. Stuart 
as its chairman, Joseph Patterson as treasurer, and Samuel Moss for 
secretary. Numerous books have been written on the women who 
volunteered as nurses in the service of the Government. Miss Clara 
Barton, now at the head of the Red Cross organization, entered upon 
hospital work at the very beginning of the war, and at the close of the 
conflict spent several years searching for the missing men of the Union 
armies. The first woman who volunteered her services was Miss 



532 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Dorothy L. Dicks, to whom all women wishing to act as nurses 
reported from the beginning of the war. Miss Amy Bradley had charge 
of a large camp for convalescents near Alexandria, and helped twenty-two 
hundred men collect back-pay due them, amounting to over two 
hundred thousand dollars. The wife of General Francis Barlow spent 
three years in hospitals and died in the service. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History — McKay's "Stories of Hospital and Camp." 
Worth'ington's "Women in Battle." 

Brockett's "Woman's Work in Camp, Field and Hospital." 
Harding's "Belle Boyd in Camp and Prison." 
Champlin's "Christian Work on the Battle Field." 

Poetry— F. Moore's "Lyrics of Loyalty." 



CHAPTER XCVI. 



"1[nruiarh % {\i JaU ^lanL" 



GRANT GIVEN ABSOLUTE COMMAND — THE BATTLE OF THE WILDER- 
NESS — "FORWARD BY THE LEFT FLANK" — SECOND BATTLE 
OF COLD HARBOR. 




:N the 19th of March, 1864, President Lincoln 
and General Grant met for the first time, and 
Grant was given his commission as Lieutenant- 
General and entrusted with all the armies in the 
field. Thoughtful people had seen for a long 
time the sore need of a single military head for the 
armies. From the first, the Union armies had sel- 
dom been as well led as the Confederate, and had been 
placed at a disadvantage by working disjointedly and 
in parts. As soon as the need for a supreme head 
was really felt, all eyes were turned toward Ulysses 
S. Grant as the man best fitted by his independence 
and decision to fill the place. Sherman was now 
put in special charge of operations in the West. Halleck was made 
chief of staff, and his duties henceforth were few. Meade was con- 
tinued in command of the Army of the Potomac. General B. F. 
Butler, with the Army of the James, was held for active service in the 
field. Grant planned a campaign in which he considered the Army of 
the Potomac his center; the Army of the James, under General Butler, 
his left wing; the Western armies, under Sherman, his right wing, and 
the army under Banks, in Louisiana, a force operating in the rear of the 
enemy. The plan was for all to move simultaneously, and each com- 
mander was given an objective point. 

The bulk of Lee's army was upon the western edge of the Wilder- 
ness, a wild, desolate region twelve or fifteen miles square, lying south of 
the Rapidan. Here it will be remembered, the battle of Chancellorsville 



534 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

had been fought in May, 1863. The ground had once been mined for 
iron ore, and the woods cut for the furnaces of the smelters. A thick 
second growth of underbrush had sprung up which was indescribably 
dense, and the whole region presented a melancholy and deserted aspect. 
The Army of the Potomac lay north of the Rapidan, opposite the 
Wilderness. It was organized in three infantr}' corps, the second, fifth 
and sixth, respectively commanded by Generals Winfield S. Hancock, 
G. K. Warren and John Sedgwick, and a cavalry corps commanded by 
General Philip H. Sheridan. General Meade was still in command of 
the whole. The ninth corps, under Burnside, nearly twenty thousand 
strong, was at Annapolis, with its destination unknown. Grant told his 
secrets to no one, for the whole war had been injured by treachery at 
Washington, from sources which could only be guessed at, but which 
kept the Confederates acquainted with every movement of the Union 
armies. The Army of Northern Virginia, as that portion of the Con- 
federate army opposed to Meade was known, consisted of two infantry 
corps, commanded by Generals Ewell and Ambrose Hill, with a cavalry 
commanded by General Stuart, the whole under Robert E. Lee. 
Longstreet was within reach and furnished an offset to Burnside's corps. 
Before daylight on the morning of May 4th, the Army of the Potomac 
marched in two columns for the lower fords of the Rapidan. Lee was 
unable to dispute the passage of the river, and may have been quite 
willing to permit the Union anny to entangle itself in the Wilderness. 
Lee was acquainted with every road and by-path of that perplexing 
region, and believed that he could make up for his deficiency in num- 
bers by bewildering his opponents. Grant wished to hurry the Army of 
the Potomac past the Wilderness in one day, but Lee proposed to strike 
upon the flanks of Grant's long columns and cut them in two, as they 
marched by two winding roads. On the morning of the 5th a body of 
cavalry came into collision with Ewell. Meade had no idea that it was 
the opening of a serious battle, and thought that a detachment had 
been left by Lee merely to mislead. But reinforcements kept coming 
up on both sides, and the fight never ceased until 4 o'clock in the after- 
noon, when both sides drew back to intrench themselves. On the 
morning of the 6th, both Lee and Meade were eager to attack, and they 
moved almost simultaneously. Throughout the day the fortune of the 
fight fluctuated. Hasty intrenchments were made, lost and retaken on 
both sides. About 4 o'clock a fire sprung up in the dry forest, and the 
wind blew the smoke and flames right in the faces of Hancock's men, 
who were intrenched behind a breastwork of pine logs. The Confed- 



"FORWARD BY THE LEFT FLANK." 535 

erates swarmed over, but in spite of their determination and of the cruel 
flames, they were driven back to their own lines. Darkness fell and 
closed the battle, although Ewell made an attack after dark upon a 
portion of Sedgwick's corps, capturing two brigades which numbered 
three thousand men, with hardly any loss to himself The Union loss 
in killed and wounded was fifteen thousand, besides five thousand 
prisoners. The Confederate loss was about ten thousand killed and 
wounded and a few prisoners. But the advantage was practically on the 
side of Grant. The Confederates had withdrawn to the'ir intrenchments, 
and from that time to the end of the campaign they seldom showed any 
desire to leave them. Lee had conducted the battle in that desolate 
jungle with the greatest skill, but he now had a general opposed to him 
who could endure misfortune without being panic-stricken; who knew 
how to turn ever}'thing to his own advantage, and whose obstinate 
determination was invincible. Lee himself exclaimed after the bloody 
battle of the Wilderness: "Gentlemen, at last the Army of the Potomac 
has a head." On the 7th, Sheridan cleared the road for the southern 
movement of the army, and Grant gave orders to move forward by the 
left flank to Spottsylvania. To withdraw an army in the presence of a 
powerful enemy and send it forward to a new position is one of the 
most difficult feats of war. Grant did this several times before the end 
of the campaign, and always by withdrawing the corps that held his 
right flank, and passing it behind the others while they maintained their 
position. Lee became aware of Grant's movement, and also moved 
toward Spottsylvania Court House, until there was a race for the posses- 
sion of that place. A part of the Union troops had held back to guard 
an attack upon- the rear of the moving column, so that finally all of 
Lee's troops stood intrenched at Spottsylvania. Here, on the 8th of 
May, the two armies faced each other and waited — the Army of Northern 
Virginia desperate, the Army of the Potomac determined. On this same 
day Grant sent Sheridan, with his cavalry, to ride around Lee's army^ 
tear up railroads, destroy bridges and depots and capture trains. 
Sheridan had been considered a dull man at West Point, and in a class 
of fifty-two had ranked thirty-four. He was very young at the time^ 
and lacked the confidence of the ofl&cials at Washington, but Grant 
believed in him thoroughly, and Grant's instinct in selecting his lieuten- 
ants was always to be trusted. On receiving Grant's orders, he dashed 
off with his well mounted men, and succeeded in destroying ten miles 
of railroad, several trains of cars, cutting all the telegraph wire and 
recapturing four hundred prisoners who had been taken in the battle of 



536 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

the Wilderness, and were on their way to Richmond. The Confederate 
cavalry, under General Stuart, set out to intercept him, and succeeded 
in getting between him and Richmond. Sheridan's troops met them 
seven miles north of the city, at Yellow Tavern, and after a hard fight 
defeated them. General Stuart was mortally wounded in this engage- 
ment, and by his death the Confederacy lost its best cavalry leader. 
Sheridan dashed through the outer defenses of Richmond and took some 
prisoners, then finding the remainder of the defenses too strong for him, 
he cross the Chickahominy and rejoined the army on the 25th. 

As the Union army came into position before the intrenchment of 
Spottsylvania, Hancock's corps held the western end of the line, 
Warren's stood next, then Sedgwick's, and then Burnside's. On the 
8th of the month General Sedgwick had been killed by an unerring 
sharpshooter who appeared to be posted in a tree, and in the course of 
the day killed at least twenty men who attempted to place the batteries. 
General Horatio G . W^right succeeded Sedgwick in command of the sixth 
corps. On the evening of the 9th a division of Hancock's had a short 
engagement and suffered considerable loss without accomplishing any- 
thing. The next two days were spent in maneuvering and fighting 
without decisive results. On the i itli of January, Grant sent a dispatch 
to the War Department, saying: "We have now ended the sixth day of 
very hard fighting. The result of this day is much in our favor. Our 
losses have been heavy, as well as those of the enemy. I propose to 
fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." The Confederate loss 
had been, in fact, far less than the Union, for the Confederates were 
fighting behind intrenchments. These intrenchments were ver>' strong, 
and search as he might, Grant could find no weak point. 

In the grey, foggy morning of May 12th, Hancock's corps dashed 
upon Lee's center, which was a salient angle thrust forward from the 
main line. Hancock succeeded in sweeping back the Confederate 
pickets by mere force of the charge. He passed the abatis and carried 
the breastworks, making prisoners of three thousand of Ewell's men. 
Little was gained, however, by the carr}ing of this salient, which was 
an outwork of no great importance. Ewell, strongly supported, stood 
beyond a second fortification, and Hancock was unable to move him. 
The battle of this day is not easy to describe. The men charged over 
and over again; the losses were heavy on both sides; little was gained, 
and no action of great peculiarity marked the day. During the next 
week Grant received reinforcements and resumed his flanking move- 
ments. Lee tried an attack, but was repelled. On the morning of the 



"forward by the left flank!" 537 

22(3, that general looked in vain for the army of the Potomac. It had 
disappeared. Lee could easily guess its destination. He broke up 
his camps and threw himself across its line of advance toward 
Richmond. When Grant reached the North Anna, he found Lee 
awaiting him upon the other side, and disposed to seriously oppose 
his crossing the river. The corps of Hancock and Warren were 
sent across the river at points four miles apart, and Lee wedged his 
force between two columns. Grant saw that one of these misfht be 
shattered, and drew them both back, resuming his old flanking move- 
ments on the 26th. Lee was quite heavily reinforced while on the 
North Anna, and at the close of May was back at the Chickahominy, 
where a battle had been fought two years before. Lee was there before 
Grant and behind strong fortifications. On the 3d of June, in the 
drizzling rain of the early morning, the second battle of Cold Harbor 
began. General Barlow's division stormed and carried the first line of 
Confederate intrenchments. From a second line a shower of lead was 
poured upon them, and when they fell back they left half their number 
behind them. Two more attempts were made, both equally unavailing, 
except that a considerable number of prisoners were taken. The entire 
loss of the Union army at Cold Harbor, in the first twelve days of June, 
was ten thousand and fifty-eight, and among these were many valuable 
officers. There had been an almost constant skirmishing. From the 
dusk of the morning till the dusk of the evening the continual crack of 
the rifle was heard. The Confederate position was very strong. The 
line was from three to six miles from the outer defences of Richmond, 
the right resting on the Chickahominy, and the left protected by the 
woods and swamps about the headwaters of several small streams. 
The only chance for attack was in front. On the 3d of June, at half 
past 4 o'clock in the morning, the second, sixth and eighteenth corps 
moved forward rapidly together, to try what could be done by an attack 
on the front. Barlow's division of Hancock's corps struck a salient, 
and fought hand-to-hand till they captured it, taking nearly three 
hundred prisoners, and three guns, which they promptly turned upon 
the enemy. But beyond the first line no division, however determined, 
could go, and trenches were rapidly dug, behind which the men could 
protect themselves. Thus closed the twelve days' fighting. 

It was evident that nothing could by done by an attack on Lee's 
front, and Grant decided to put his army into a new position. He sent 
part of his cavalry to the James, above Richmond, for the purpose of 
destroying portions of Lee's line of supplies from the Shenandoah valley, 



538 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

and then prepared intrenchments from his position at Cold Harbor to 
the point where he expected to cross the Chickahominy. Grant was 
then in readiness to march his army from before the face of the enemy 
for fifty miles, to cross two rivers and bring it into a new position. 
The bridges on the Chickahominy had been destroyed, but each column 
carried a pontoon train. The long lines of infantry, artiller}' and trains 
crossed over the river at many different points, and an army of more 
than one million was placed in a position threatening the Confederate 
capital, and the Confederates saw that the end was near and certain. 
Through the rest of the war they fought with a passion which showed 
their desperation. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History — Down's "Four Years a Scout and Spy." 

Edwards' "Noted Guerrillas." 

Eggleston's "A Rebel's Recollections." 

Grant's "Historj' of the Rebellion." 

Lemour's "Morgan and His Captors." 
Fiction— "The American Mail-bag." 

E. Eggleston's "Roxv." 
Poetry— J. G. Whittier's "In War Time." 



CHAPTER XCVII. 



■k 







)rnt$$r$. 



THE CONFEDERATE PRIVATEERS — FIGHT BETWEEN THE " KEAR- 



SARGE 



AND 



ALABAMA" — THE INTERNATIONAL 



COURT OF ARBITRATION — SHERMAN AND THE 
WESTERN CAMPAIGN. 



1856, a treaty was signed at Paris by the great 
powers of Europe, by which they agreed to give 
up the right of privateering. The United States 
offered to sign this on condition that a clause be 
inserted declaring that private property on the 
high seas, if not contraband of war, should be 
exempt from seizure by the public armed vessels of an 
enemy, as well as the private ones. This amendment was 
declined by the European powers, and the United States 
therefore did not become a party to the treaty. When 
the War of Secession began, the Confederate authorities 
stated their intention of arming private vessels to prey 
upon American commerce, and the United States Gov- 
ernment then offered to accept the treaty without 
England and France, however, refused to permit our 
Government to join in the treaty then, if its provisions against priva- 
teering were to be understood as applying to vessels sent out under 
Confederate authority. The Confederacy was therefore unhindered in 
its privateering enterprises, and not only kept a score of cruisers roam- 
ing about the seas to prey upon United States commerce, but had the 
satisfaction of knowing that more would be built for her at any time 
she wished, in the best ship-yards of England. Among her cruisers 
were the Shenandoah^ which made thirty-eight captures, the Florida^ 
which made twenty-six, the Tallahassee, which made twenty-seven, the 
Tacony, which made fifteen, and the Georgia, which made ten. Still 
more famous than these were the Siunptev and Alabama. The Alabama 




amendment. 



540 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

had been built for the Confederate Government in 1862, at Birkenhead, 
opposite Liverpool. She was an excellent sailor, carried both canvas and 
steam, was two hundred and twenty feet long, and, though of wood, a 
very formidable vessel. The British Government was notified by the 
American Minister at London that such a ship was being built in an 
English yard, in violation of the neutrality laws, and demanded that 
she be prevented from leaving the yard. But the English Government 
was not over-anxious to prevent her escape, and moved so slowly that 
the cruiser escaped to sea. Her crew were mostly Englishmen, but she 
was commanded by Raphael Semmes, who had served in the United States 
Navy. She roamed about the Atlantic and Indian Oceans and the 
Gulf of Mexico for nearly two years, and captured sixty-nine American 
merchantmen, most of which were burned at sea, while their crews 
were put on shore at some convenient port or sent away on passing 
vessels. The Alabama was always kindly received in foreign ports, for 
she was helping to ruin American commerce. None of the war vessels 
which had been sent after her had been able to capture her, because of 
the rule that when two hostile vessels are in a neutral port, the first 
that leaves must have been gone twenty-four hours before the other is 
permitted to follow. Biit in June, 1864, the United States man-of-war 
Kearsarge^ commanded by John A. Winslow, found the Alaba7na in 
the harbor of Cherbourg, France. Winslow did not go into port at all, 
and thus escaped the twenty-four-hour rule. The Alabama had no 
desire to escape the Kearsarge^ and her commander sent out a note 
asking Winslow not to go away. The request was quite unnecessary. 
The Kcarsai'gc waited patiently, till on Simday morning, June 19th, 
the A/abauia^ watched and applauded by thousands of Englishmen and 
Frenchmen, sailed out to crush the Kearsarge. The vessels were a very 
fair match in point of size and armament. When they were seven or 
eight miles from the coast, the Alabama opened fire, and the two vessels 
steamed around on opposite sides of a circle half a mile in diameter, 
firing their starboard guns. The gun practice on the Alabama was 
very bad ; that on the Kcai'sarge was excellent. She threw balls in at the 
port-holes of her enemy, and swept away whole crews of gunners. She 
felled the mizzen mast with a shot, and pierced the hull below the water 
line, letting floods of water into the hold. Before an hour had passed 
the Alabama struck her colors, and her officers threw their swords into 
the sea in token of surrender. Wliile the Kearsarge was lowering 
boats to take off the crew, the Alabama, with a shudder and a plunge, 
went to the bottom of the English Channel. The Kearsarge succeeded 



THE CONFEDERATE CRUISERS. 541 

in rescuing some of the men, and an English yacht saved Semmes and 
about forty of his crew, but a considerable number were drowned. 
Captain Semmes had been defeated once before by the Kearsarge^ when 
he commanded the Siimpter. That vessel, after a career in which she 
succeeded in capturing many American vessels, was blockaded by the 
United States steamers Kearsarge and Ttiscarora^ in the harbor of 
Gibraltar, in February of 1862, and was there abandoned by her captain 
and crew. 

In 1872, the International Court of Arbitration, sitting in Geneva, 
Switzerland, decided that the British Government, for neglecting to 
prevent the escape of Confederate cruisers from its ports, must pay the 
United States Government fifteen million five hundred thousand dollars. 
This sum fell far short of the damage which had been done, but the 
United States cared less for the money than for the establishment of the 
principle. 

While the army of the Potomac was putting itself in position for a 
death-grapple with the army of North Virginia, important movements 
were going on at the West. The purpose of these was to secure the 
Mississippi river absolutely, and to set free the large garrisons required 
to hold the important places on its banks. General Sherman set out 
from Vicksburg on the 3d of February, 1864, with a force of over 
twenty thousand men. His destination was Meridian, over one hundred 
miles east of Vicksburg, where two important railroads cross each other. 
The Union troops entered the town on the 14th, and destroyed the 
Confederate arsenal and store-houses, as well as the machine shops, the 
stations and railways. The rails were heated and then bent and twisted, 
and were popularly known as "Jeff Davis' neckties," and "Sherman's 
hair-pins." The roads were thoroughly destroyed, every mill and 
factor^' ruined, and only the dwelling-houses left untouched. A 
detachment of cavalry, which Sheridan had sent out to destroy Forrest's 
Confederate cavalry, having failed in its purpose, Sherman thought best 
to return to Vicksburg. He was followed to that city by thousands of 
negroes, who could be turned back neither by persuasion nor threats, 
and who saw in Sherman a deliverer whom it was their duty and pleasure 
to follow. On the west side of the Mississippi, General Banks attempted 
to perform a service somewhat similar to that of Sherman's, for the 
purpose of widening the gap in the Confederacy. He set out with 
about fifteen thousand men, in March, for Shreveport, at the head of 
steam navigation on the Red river. Here he was to be joined by ten 
thousand men, under General A. J. Smith, who had been detached 



542 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



from Sherman's army for the occasion, and Commodore David Porter, 
with a fleet of gunboats and transports. Smith and Porter arrived 
promptly at the rendezvous, captured Fort De Russe}', below Alexan- 
dria, and after Banks' arrival, the army moved along the river roads 
within sight of the gunboats. This march was continued for many 
days, the monotony being broken by an occasional skirmish with small 
bodies of Confederate troops, and slight demonstrations from the gnn- 




PICKING COTTON. 



boats. The army was strung out for twenty miles on a single road, and 
walked along easily, not unpleased with the comparative quiet. They 
were punished for this carelessness by coming suddenly upon a strong 
Confederate force, commanded by General Richard Taylor, near the 
Sabine Cross-roads. Neither commander intended that there should be a 
battle, but the men of both sides became much excited, and it was 
necessary on both sides to keep bringing forward men, until at last Banks' 
linesuddenlv gave wav. The cavalrvand teamsters rushed in confusion 



THE CONFEDERATE CRUISERS. 543 

and fear before the victorious Confederates. Three miles in the rear, 
the nineteenth corps stood the tide of the rout, and successfully repelled 
the Confederates. Banks fell back to Pleasant Hill, where, on the 
following day, he had nearly his whole force in line. The Confederates 
made an assault late in the afternoon, and were repelled. Banks 
followed this up by an attack on his o.wn part, and recaptured several 
of the guns he had lost the day before. Banks had been ordered to 
return Smith's borrowed troops, and, therefore, could not follow up his 
victory, but fell back to the river Ecore. Here it was found that the 
river had so fallen as to make it impossible for the fleet to pass down 
the rapids, and it was feared that the boats would be taken and 
destroyed. They were saved by the ingenuity of Lieutenant-Colonel 
Joseph Bailey, who, though scoffed at by the army engineers, built a 
dam across the river in eight days, in which he left a narrow passage, 
though which the water rushed like a mill-race. Within a few days the 
entire fleet passed through this swirling stream of water and steamed 
down the Mississippi. 

Fifteen thousand troops, under General Steele, had marched from 
Little Rock toward Shreveport, to reinforce Banks, but were defeated 
by the same force of Confederates who had engaged in the battles of 
Sabine Cross-roads and Pleasant Hill. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History — Cannon's "Casual Papers upon the Alabama." 

Semme's "Cruise of the Alabama." 

Amman's "The Atlantic Coast." 

Mahan's "The Gulf and Inland Waters." 

Soley's "The Blockade and the Cruisers." 
Fiction— W. H. Thome's "Running the Blockade." 
Poetry — T. B. Read's "Kearsarge and the Alabama." 



CHAPTER XCVIII. 

''jifbr Inu, Pol!" 

SHERMAN'S MARCH TO ATLANTA — THE BOMBARDMENT OF MOBILE — 
DESTRUCTION OF THE "ALBEMARLE." 




HESE two expeditions only heralded the great 
campaign which Sherman was to undertake with 
his army, and which was to be simultaneous with 
that carried on by Grant in Virginia. Its import- 
ance was almost as great, its difficulties as numer- 
ous. The object was to move forward to Chattanooga, 
reach and capture Atlanta, which was important as a 
railroad center and for its manufacture of military sup- 
plies, and thus sweep a great swath through the Confed- 
eracy. General Joseph E. Johnston, one of the best 
generals in the Confederate service, had been left to 
guard this section of country, and Sherman realized that 
his skillful opposition could only be overcome with 
great difficulty. Chattanooga is a hundred miles from 
Atlanta, through a country of many hills and streams, 
well adapted for an army acting on the defensive. Johnston was the 
man to make the most of this. He had an army numbering fifty-five 
thousand, while Sherman had one hundred thousand. But the practical 
difference was not great, for Sherman was not only to act on the offen- 
sive, but to leave heavy detachments behind him from day to day to 
guard his communications, for all of his supplies were drawn from 
Nashville, over one single-track railroad, which was liable to be broken 
at any time. Thus Sherman was obliged to stretch out his army like a 
great elastic string, while Johnston could keep his well massed, and 
would also have the advantage of fighting on the defensive. Sherman's 
men were well supplied, but were permitted to take nothing which 
should hamper them in their daring march. General Thomas was the 
only man in the army who was allowed a tent. Sherman himself had 



"AFTER YOU, PILOT!" 545 

neither tent nor wagon train. Every man, from Sherman down, car- 
ried five days' provisions on his back. 

On May 5th, the army left Chattanooga and followed the line of 
the railroad south toward Atlanta. Sherman sent McPherson south- 
ward to march through a gap in the mountains, strike Resaca and cut 
the railroad over which Johnston drew all his supplies. McPherson 
reached Resaca, but found such a force there that instead of attacking 
boldly, he fell back to the gap and waited for the rest of the army to 
join him. By this time Johnston had learned what was going on, and 
had concentrated his forces in a strong position at Resaca, where Sher- 
man faced him on May 14th. The day was given up to skirmishing, 
for neither general was willing to fight at a disadvantage. Sherman 
threw two pontoon bridges across the river that he might send a detach- 
ment to break the railroad, and McPherson gained a position where his 
guns could destroy the railroad bridge in the Confederate rear. Johns- 
ton thought it best to hasten away from a place in which he was 
becoming so cramped, and on the 15th crossed the river and moved 
southward, burning the bridges behind him. By pontoons and fords, 
Sherman's forces hurried after. When Sherman was a young lieuten- 
ant he had ridden through the country from Charleston, South Carolina, 
to Northwestern Georgia, and he still remembered how the land lay 
and the rivers ran. He knew that Allatoona Pass, through which the 
railroad south of Kingston runs, was very strong, and could be easily 
held by Johnston. He therefore directed his columns in such a way as 
to threaten Marietta and Atlanta, so as to cause Johnston to withdraw 
from Allatoona and leave the railroad, which, as Sherman's army 
advanced into the country, became more and more necessary to it. 
Johnston moved westward to meet this movement, and the forces met at 
the cross-roads by New Hope Church. For six days there was constant 
skirmishing around this place, and in the end, though little had been 
gained, the advantage was with Sherman. He succeeded in securing 
all the wagon roads from Allatoona, and in sending out a strong force 
to occupy the pass and repair the railroad. Johnston took up a new 
position on the slopes of the Kennesaw, Pine and Lost mountains. 
From here, he could see everything that was done by Sherman's army. 
That army did not try to get out of sight, but moved closer and closer, 
by intrenchments. For several days heavy rains kept Sherman from 
acting, but as soon as fair weather came, steady skirmishing was kept 
up between the two lines, and the loss of men on both sides was 
heavy. 



546 THK STORY OF AMERICA. 

On June 14th, the Confederate army suffered the loss of General 
Leonidas Polk, who stood by a battery on the crest of Pine ^Mountain, 
with a group of officers examining the field with their glasses. 
General Polk had been for twenty years the Protestant Episcopal Bishop 
of Louisiana, and in his death the Confederacy lost one of its most influ- 
ential men. On June 15th, Sherman found that Johnston had with- 
drawn from Pine Mountain, and promptly occupied the ground himself, 
taking a large number of prisoners. On the following day the enemy 
had abandoned Lost Mountain and retreated to works prepared for them 
by gangs of slaves, on the Kennesaw, where they were able to cover 
Marietta and the roads to Atlanta. On the 27th, Sherman decided to 
attack the enemy in his intrenchments, and launched heavy columns 
against them, while a steady fire was kept up all along the line. This 
experiment cost Sherman over twenty-five hundred men, and gained 
nothing, for though his men charged valiantly, only a few reached the 
enemy's works, and these were killed or captured. Shennan therefore 
decided on an action which required the utmost boldness, and which 
was against the rules of warfare, to-wit: He left his communications, 
took ten days' provisions in wagons, and moved his whole army south- 
ward to seize the road below Marietta. He did this by moving by the 
right flank, in the same cautious manner that Grant had done in his 
difficult march from the Wilderness to the James river. Johnston fell 
back to the Chattahoochee, but instead of crossing the stream, put him- 
self behind a magnificent piece of field fortification which a thousand 
slaves had been working on for a month. But Sherman held the river 
above and below and was able to cross when he chose, and Johnston, 
realizing Sherman's advantages, crossed in the night with his entire 
army, and burned the railroad and other bridges behind him. On the 
17th of July, Sherman cautiously followed, moving his army by a grand 
right wheel, toward the city of Atlanta. At this point, Johnston, who 
had so cautiously and skillfully evaded his opponent, was removed, and 
the command given to General John B. Hood, a man capable of reckless 
fighting, but lacking Johnston's skill and wisdom. Sherman knew 
that sudden sallies were to be expected now, and on July 20th, as the 
Union troops were entering Atlanta, Hood's men left the intrenchments 
prepared for them along the line of Peach Tree creek, and attacked. 
At the end of two hours the enemy was driven back to his intrench- 
ments, leaving hundreds of dead on the field. A day or two later the 
Confederates fell back to the immediate defenses of the city. 

On the 22d, Hood moved out with a part of his army, and attacked 



"after you, pilot!" 547 

a detachment of Sherman's men, who had been left without proper 
protection upon a hill. The forest hid him till his men burst upon the 
camp, and the troops were taken entirely by surprise. But under the 
direction of General Logan and others, the surprised forces rallied and 
repulsed seven fierce charges. A counter-charge finally drove back the 
Confederates. The Union loss in the battle of Atlanta was three 
thousand five hundred and twenty-one men killed, wounded and 
missing, and ten guns. The Confederate loss was larger. General 
McPherson was' killed in the woods, where he had ridden alone at the 
first sound of battle. He was a young man, and a brilliant one, popular 
with the soldiers, and of no little assistance to Sherman. General 
Howard was promoted to McPherson's place, in command of the Army 
of the Tennessee, and General Hooker resigned, because he thought 
that the position should have been given him. General Henry W. 
Slocum was given Hooker's command of the twentieth corps. On the 
28th, when Sherman moved again by the right. Hood made a heavy 
attack, which Logan repelled with a loss to himself of five hundred and 
seventy-two men. Sherman constantly sent out cavalry expeditions to 
break the railroads south of Atlanta, but as fast as he 'broke, the Con- 
federates repaired them. Kilpatrick's cavalry rode entirely around 
Atlanta, defeated a combined cavalr>' and infantry force, and thought 
he had done damage enough to the railroad to keep supplies from 
entering the city for ten days, but before twenty-four hours the enter- 
prising Confederates had trains running into the city again. Finding 
that these raids accomplished but little, Sherman again moved by the 
right, and swung his army into position south of Atlanta, and then 
advanced toward the city. The greater part of Hood's force escaped 
eastward on the night of September ist, and, a few days later, Sherman 
made his headquarters in the city and took permanent possession. 

Grant and Sherman had planned to have the city of Mobile taken 
by forces moving east from New Orleans and Port Hudson. The 
principal defences of Mobile Bay were Fort Morgan, on Mobile Point, 
and Fort Gaines, three miles northwest of it. The passage between 
these two forts was obstructed by many piles and a line of torpedoes. 
The eastern end of this line was marked by a red buoy, and from that 
point to Fort ]\Iorgan the channel was open to allow blockade runners 
to pass. The plan was to have Farragut's fleet pass these forts, subdue 
the Confederate fleet inside, and take possession of the bay. A land 
force to co-operate with him was furnished, under General Gordon 
Grano-er. Farragut's fleet consisted of four iron-clad monitors and 



548 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



seven wooden sloops of war. Each sloop had a gunboat lashed to her 
side, to help her out in case she was disabled. On the 4th of August 
all the ships were under way, the Brooklyn going first and carr>ang an 
apparatus for picking up torpedoes. The forts and the Confederate 
fleet opened fire upon them half an hour before they could bring their 
guns to answer. Farragut's flag-ship, the Hartford^ suffered especially. 
She received a one-hundred-and-twenty-pound ball in her mainmast, and 




LIEtTTENANT CUSHING'S ATTACK ON THE "ALBEMARLE." 



had great splinters sent flying across her deck, which killed and wounded 
many of her crew. But the Hartford and the other vessels weathered 
the storm, and as they came abreast of the fort, poured in terrific broad- 
sides of shot and shells, and soon quieted the Confederate batteries. It 
was known that the red buoy marked the line of torpedoes, and the 
captains had been particularly warned not to pass east of it. But 
Captain Craven, of the monitor Tccinnsch^ disregarded this order in his 



"after you, pilot!" 549 

impatience to attack the Confederate ram Tennessee^ and his vessel 
struck a torpedo which exploded. As the vessel was rapidly sinking, 
Captain Craven and his pilot met at the foot of a ladder which afforded 
the only escape. The pilot moved aside for his superior officer to pass. 
Craven knew that it was his fault that the accident had occurred, and 
said, "After you, pilot;" "but," said the pilot, "there was nothing after 
me, for the moment that I reached the deck, the vessel seemed to drop 
from under me and went to the bottom." 

Farragut was lashed in the rigging of the Hartford^ and ordering 
steam on his vessel, led the whole line past the dangerous torpedoes. 
He succeeded in sending the Teiiiiessee^ the Confederate iron-clad, oflf 
for a time, and sent his gunboats in pursuit of the enemy's gunboats. 
These succeeded in destroying or capturing all of the Confederate 
vessels except one. The iron ram Tennessee then steamed boldly into 
the midst of Farragut' s vessels, trying to ruin them with her powerful 
ram and firing in every direction. She was so heavy and cumbersome 
that the Union vessels were able to avoid her by skillful management, 
and the monitors poured solid shot against her armor. When at length 
they shot away her smoke-stack, life on her became unendurable, and 
she surrendered. It was a glorious victory, but Farragut, coming down 
from the shrouds, thought less of the triumph than of the twenty-four 
dead sailors — long his companions — who were laid out on the deck 
of the Hartford^ and over whom the brave old sailor wept some bitter 
tears. 

In October the Confederate iron-clad Albemarle was destroyed on 
the Roanoke river. Lieutenant William B. Cushing, of the navy, 
ventured with a volunteer crew, in a small steam launch, to put a 
torpedo under her overhang. This exploded and sent her to the 
bottom, destroying the launch also. The crew of the launch, with the 
exception of Cushing and one sailor, were lost. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History — Andrew's "Campaign of Mobile." 

Logan's "The Great Conspiracy." 

Poetry — L. C. Redden's "Idyls of Battle." 

H. H. Brownell's "Farragufs Bay Fight." 
FiCTiox— G. W. Nichol's "The Sanctuary." 



CHAPTER XCIX. 



^vnm %ihm\n b ll^s ^an. 



THE MARCH FROM ATLANTA TO THE SEA — THE ENTRANCE TO 

SAVANNAH — THE SIEGE OF RICHMOND BURNSIDE'S 

BLUNDER — THE BURNING OF 
CHAMBERSBURG. 

9 

HERMAN converted Atlanta into a purely 

military post, and ordered all the inhabitants 

to leave the town. Hood lingered about the 

r \m N >P- ^sJTiJW neighborhood till the first of September, and 

s ^^S^r^^i^^''^ then set out to Tennessee with the purpose of 

destroying the railroads, by which the national 

army was supplied. Sherman guessed his designs, 

hurried a detachment to check him, and some fierce 

fighting took place about Allatoona. Hood continued 

his retreat, and early in December reached Nashville. 

Thomas was awaiting him at this place, and, after two 

days of sharp conflict, the Confederates were utterly 

routed. 

Sherman now set out on his march from Atlanta to 
the sea, a distance of two hundred and twenty-five miles, in a straight 
line. His object was to destroy the railroads in Georgia, which would 
deal a more fatal blow to the Confederacy than even the seizure of the 
Mississippi had done. He made the most thorough preparations. His 
army was weeded out; all the sick and disabled sent north; every 
luxury dispensed with, and ever}- necessit}^ provided for. The presi- 
dential election was at hand, and before the army departed, commis- 
sioners came and took the votes of the soldiers. Every detacliment 
of the army was given the most minute instructions, and on the twelfth 
of November, as the anny whirled out of Atlanta, the road was 
destroyed behind them, the depot, machine-shops and locomotive house 
torn down, and fire set to the ruins. Everv man in the armv was a 




FROM ATLANTA TO THE SEA. 55 1 

veteran. There was the most perfect confidence in Sherman. Each 
man was, to an extent, in his confidence; knew what he was to do, 
why he was to do it, and was determined to perform his part. The 
army was to live, for the most part, upon the country. The soldiers 
were forbidden to enter dwelling-houses, but foraging parties were to 
daily gather sufficient vegetables and drive in any stock which was in 
sight of the encampment. At least ten days' provisions were to be kept 
in the wagons. Whenever the army was unmolested no houses or 
mills were to be destroyed, but if guerillas were to appear, or if the 
line was especially annoyed, the army commanders were permitted to 
order a retaliation. 

Frantic appeals were put forth to the people of Georgia, by the 
Governor of the State, to stay the march of this army. The Secretary 
of War sent word that the enemy could now be destroyed, if the people 
would only arise and protect their native soil. But there were no 
people, or at least no men, to arise. Almost every able-bodied man in 
the State was in the war. Thus Sherman's great anny swept on 
through the heart of the Confederacy, meeting with no opposition worth 
speaking of until the heads of the columns were within sixteen miles of 
Savannah. Here the roads leading to the city were found to be 
obstructed by felled timber, with earthworks and artillery; but 
Sherman's forces, who had torn up more railroads, cleared more roads^ 
and built more bridges than any other portion of the national army^ 
were not easily stayed by a few felled trees and some earthworks. When 
torpedoes and shells were found buried in the ground, the Confederate 
prisoners were made to remove them. Fort McAllister, fifteen miles 
below Savannah, was the only real obstacle in the way. This hindered 
communication with the fleet, and it was therefore necessary to carry it. 
This Sherman did on the thirteenth. He then demanded the surrender 
of the city. This was refused by General Hardee, who was in com- 
mand at that point. Sherman prepared for a regular siege, but on the 
twenty -first of December, 1864, Hardee left the city, marching his 
force toward Charleston, and Sherman entered it the following day. 
Sherman wrote to the President: "I beg to present you, as a Christmas 
gift, the city of Savannah, with one hundred and fifty heavy guns, 
plenty of ammunition, and about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton. '^ 
The President received this message on Christmas eve, and it was the 
first word which he had heard from that vast army for over a month. 
Sherman's entire loss in the march had been seven hundred and sixty- 
four men. He had struck directly at the source of the Confederate 



552 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



supplies, and had accomplished a great purpose with but little destruc- 
tion of life. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Lincoln was rechosen President, in spite of the 
personal abuse that was heaped upon him, and the declaration of a 
large portion of the North that the war was a failure. That it was not 
so, was owing largely to the combined action of Sherman and Grant. 
In Virginia, events had so shaped themselves that the campaign took 
the form of a siege of Richmond. Lee was confident in his belief that 
his seventy thousand men could hold this well-fortified city against 
any force that could be brought against it, so long as his army was fed. 
To reach Richmond, it was necessar\- for Grant to carr}^ Petersburg, 
which was the focus to which several roads converged. Five railroads 
entered this point, besides several plank roads and turnpikes. These 
railroads formed the main means of supply for the Confederate force, after 
those of the valley of the Shenandoah had been thoroughly interrupted 
— and Grant saw to it that they were interrupted. Petersburg was not 
strongly fortified, and on the 14th of June a feeble movement was made 
by General Smith against the place, which was not successful. On the 
1 6th Grant himself superintended a forcible attack. The Confederates 
made a stout defense, but late in the day rushed back in full flight. They 
were stayed, however, by a single fresh brigade, and night put an end to 
the fighting. In the darkness, Beauregard drew off his disordered 
troops to an unfortified position, and worked them all night throwing 
up intrenchments. Lee, now realizing the importance of Petersburg, 
hurried large reinforcements down from Richmond. On the 17th the 
contest for the Confederate lines was renewed, and Hancock and Burn- 
side carried it at a cost of four thousand men. On the following day 
the Confederates moved back to their inner lines, which were too strong 
to be attacked, and Grant contented himself with enveloping Peters- 
burg with his army. The siege was regularly opened on the 19th of 
June. Grant's first attempt against the railroad was on the 21st of 
June, against the Weldon road, which was the most important one. 
The two detachments which were sent out for this purpose were nearly 
at right angles with each other, but were not in connection, and did not 
sufficiently guard their flanks. A heavy Confederate force, under Gen- 
eral A. P. Hill, coming out to meet the movement, drove straight into 
the gap between the forces, and succeeded in capturing seventeen 
hundred men and four guns. The fighting was not severe, but the 
movement against the railroads was checked. Hill withdrew to his 
intrenchments. The Union lines were re-established on this flank, 



FROM ATLANTA TO THE SEA. 553 

and nothing of importance occurred here till the middle of August. 
But near the center of the line in front of Burnside's corps there was 
great interest felt in a tunnel which was being dug by a regiment of 
Pennsylvania miners. These were directed under the nearest point of 
the Confederate works, and the digging was begun in a ravine, to be out 
of sight of the enemy, the earth being carried in cracker-boxes and 
hidden under the brushwood. This mine, planned by Burnside, was five 
hundred and twenty feet long, with lateral branches at the head forty 
feet in each direction, and charged with eight thousand pounds of gun- 
powder. It was exploded on the afternoon of July 30th. A great mass 
of earth, two hundred feet long, sixty feet wide and thirty feet deep, 
shot up into the air and fell, leaving a crater into which fully fifty thou- 
sand Union troops poured. These were unable to climb its sides, and 
the Confederates, after the first shock of horror had passed, poured a 
plunging fire over the brink. Not till eight terrible hours had passed 
were the troops ordered to leave the crater, which they did by one nar- 
row passage. The Union lost four thousand men in this engagement. 
The Confederates not more than one thousand. Burnside, distressed past 
expression at the failure of the movement, begged to be relieved from 
his command, and his corps was given to Parke. 

Lee had become so confident of his position at Richmond that he 
sent a considerable force to the aid of Early, who, for some time had 
been operating in the valley of the Shenandoah, The defenses of 
Washington had been nearly stripped of troops to reinforce the Army 
of the Potomac, and Early hoped to take the National Capital by a 
sudden dash. On the loth of July he came within six miles of Wash- 
ington without meeting much show of resistance. There was great 
alarm in the capital. The citizens. Government clerks and Govern- 
ment officials armed themselves to defend the city. Fortunately, Early 
halted for two days, and in the meantime Grant sent the sixth corps 
from before Petersburg, and the ninteenth, by water, from Hampton 
Roads. These reached Washington just in time to save it, and on the 1 2th 
Early retreated across the Potomac with a great quantity of booty. 
Little attempt was made to follow him, and within two weeks he made 
a raid into Pennsylvania. His cavalry, three hundred strong, entered 
Chambersburg on the 30th, and stated that unless two hundred thou- 
sand dollars in gold was immediately paid, the town should surely 
be burned. As this amount of money could not be J)roduced by the 
citizens, the village was given to the flames. All these disasters Grant 
clearly saw were owing to the want of an efiicient commander for that 



554 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

department, and he hastened to Harper's Ferr}', accepted Hunter's 
resignation, and appointed Sheridan to the command of all the troops in 
West Virginia and about Washington. 

FOR FURTHER READING : 

History— Boynton's "Shennan's Historical Raid." 
Cox's "Marching to the Sea." 
Cannon's "Grant's Richmond Campaigrn." 
Taylor's "Four Years With General I^ee." 
Poetry— C. G. Halpin's "Song of Sherman's Army." * 

J. G. Whittier's "Howard at Atlanta." 



CHAPTER C. 

SHERIDAN AND THE SHENANDOAH CAMPAIGN — SHERMAN'S MARCH 
NORTHWARD FROM SAVANNAH — THE BURN- 
ING OF COLUMBIA. 



^HEN Sheridan was placed in command of the 
army of the Shenandoah he was but thirty-three 
years old, and Secretary Stanton objected to him 
on the grounds that he was too young for so im- 
portant a command. He had not been a brilliant 
scholar at West Point, but in the army his record 
was good. He had, in short, a genius for fight- 
ing. Under his direction the cavalry of the Union ser- 
vice became unconquerable. Grant, whose instinct was 
sure in the selection of his assistants, persisted in giving 
the command to him. His instructions were to push up 
the Shenandoah valley, and leave nothing to invite the 
enemy to return. Such stock and provisions as could 
not be used were to be destroyed. The Shenandoah 
valley ran like a fertile road between the mountain walls, 
and down this the Confederate force could be launched at almost any 
time upon Washington. So fruitful was this valley that it furnished 
the chief source of supplies for the Confederate army, and was a strong- 
hold almost impossible to carry from the sides. To enter it from the 
end and follow a Confederate army through it was a hazardous matter, 
but Sheridan undertook it with enthusiasm. Early's main force was on 
the south bank of the Potomac, above Harper's Ferry, and upon 
Sheridan's approach he hastened to recall his cavalry, who were gather- 
ing wheat upon the battle field of Antietam. Sheridan hastened to 
move his army toward Winchester to threaten Early's communications 
and draw him into battle. Early altered his position to cover Win- 
chester, and waited for reinforcements from Lee's army. Grant warned 




556 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Sheridan that the force would be too strong for him to attack, and he 
therefore waited till the Confederates should take the oflfensive, which 
they did on August 21, 1864. 

The engagement was not of much importance. For three or four 
weeks following, Early kept his whole force at the lower end of the 
valley, and amused himself by making raids into Pennsylvania, West 
Virginia and Maryland. The cavalry indulged in many small engage- 
ments, with var\'ing results. Grant and Sheridan agreed thoroughly 
as to the method of conducting the campaign, and they paid no atten- 
tion to the criticisms which they received from every quarter. They 
felt sure that the time would come when Lee would recall part of the 
forces he had sent into the valley, and that Sheridan could then deal a 
severe blow to Early. 

All happened as they expected. On September 19th, Lee re- 
called the command which had reinforced Early in August, and at the 
same time a large part of Early's remaining troops were sent to Martins- 
burg, twenty miles away. Sheridan, who had been watching Early as 
a cat does a mouse, knew that the moment had come to spring. Early 
was east of Winchester; Sheridan along the line of Opequan creek, 
about five miles east of the city. Early in the morning Sheridan set 
his troops in motion. The men crossed the stream, passed through a 
ravine, and by mid-day were in line of battle. In the meantime Early 
had sent to recall his men from Martinsburg, and his whole force was 
uniting in front of Winchester. 

The battle began along the whole line at once, and never ceased till 
nightfall. As the afternoon drew near its close Sheridan had the 
advantage, and he kept his men to their work with a tenacity which 
discouraged and bewildered the Confederates till they fled through the 
streets of Winchester in hopeless dismay and escaped up the valley. 
The Union loss was five thousand; the Confederate loss one thousand 
less, with two generals and nine battle flags. 

Sheridan wrote to Grant that he had "sent Early whirling through 
Winchester." Early retreated southward and took up a position on 
Fisher's Hill, where the valley narrows till it is only four miles in 
width. Here his men began the construction of intrenchments. Sher- 
idan followed promptly and some of his troops gained an eminence 
overlooking the Confederate intrenchments, and hastened to cut trees 
and prepared batteries at this point. Sheridan carefully reconnoitred 
the position himself, and planned to send the greater part of his cavalry 
through the Luray valley to the rear of the Confederates, thus cutting 



WHIRLING THROUGH WINCHESTER. 557 

off their retreat, and at the same time to attack in front with a portion 
of the men, while General Crook, with the eighth corps, should make a 
detour and come in on the enemy's flank. Just at dusk Crook and his 
men crept silently out of the woods and burst upon Early's left. The 
Confederates were astounded. Their own intrenchments were used by 
the enemy against them, and at the front Sheridan pressed promptly on 
and the enemy fled in dismay. Sheridan's cavalry, however, failed to 
get through to the rear, and retreat was therefore left open. In the 
battle of Fisher's Hill the Union loss was about four hundred, and the 
Confederate about fourteen hundred. Early retreated on through the 
valley, and Sheridan relentlessly followed until he could safely go no 
farther. 

On October 5th, Sheridan turned about and swept his army like a 
cloud of locusts through the fertile region, destroying everything except 
the dwellings. In his report, Sheridan said: "I have destroyed over 
two thousand barns filled with wheat, hay and farming implements; 
over seventy mills filled with flour and wheat; have driven in front of 
the army over four thousand head of stock, and have killed and issued 
to the troops not less than three thousand sheep." 

Early was now reinforced, and he, in turn, pursued Sheridan. On 
October 7th, the cavalry of both sides indulged in a spirited engage- 
ment, in which the Union forces were victors, and captured over three 
hundred prisoners, eleven guns, and all the wagons of the opposing 
force. Sheridan halted north of Strasburg, at Cedar creek, and put his 
army in camp there under General Wright, while he obeyed a summons 
calling him to Washington to confer about the continuation of the cam- 
paign. As the valley had been laid desolate. Early could find nothing 
for his men and horses to live upon, and he was forced either to leave 
the valley or attack immediately. He decided to attack, and on the 
night of the i8th, his soldiers crept silently upon the flank held by 
Crook's corps, burst upon it with such unexpected fierceness that the 
men had not time to leave their tents, and many of them were stabbed 
while they were still sleeping. The nineteenth corps was also routed 
in confusion, but the sixth stood firm and covered the retreat of the 
rest. Sheridan was returning from Washington, and when he reached 
Winchester, heard of the battle. He dashed on for twenty miles and 
met a stream of fugitives pouring in a headlong rout toward Winchester, 
but when he shouted, "Face the other way, boys; we are going back to 
our camps!" the men turned and followed the little general on his foam- 
covered horse back to the defense. In the afternoon Sheridan himself 



558 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

attacked, sending his gallant cavalry around both flanks, and breaking 
the whole Confederate line. All the guns lost in the morning were 
retaken and twenty-four besides. In the battle of Cedar creek, the 
Union loss was five thousand seven hundred and sixty-four, of whom 
seventeen hundred were prisoners taken in the morning and hurried 
away toward Richmond. The Confederate loss was about thirty-one 
hundred. This practically ended the campaign in the valley. 

The armV of the Potomac, before Petersburg, went into winter 
quarters behind its intrenchments, contenting itself with a constant 
picket and artillery fire. During the winter the Confederate army 
suffered greatly. They were sometimes without meat, often without 
other necessities, and always without luxuries. On the i5tli of January, 
1865, Fort Fisher, which commands the port at Wilmington, was 
cajDtured by a combined naval and militar}^ expedition under General 
Alfred H. Terry. This had been an important avenue of supply to the 
Confederates, and its loss was severely felt. On the 9th of February, 
1865, Lee was made Commander-in-chief of all the militar}- forces of 
the Confederacy. He first appointed General J. E. Johnston as com- 
mander of all the troops in Georgia, South Carolina and Florida, and 
gave him orders to drive back Sherman. Sherman's great army had 
left Savannah on the ist of Februar>', sixty thousand strong. The march 
which Sherman now undertook was much more difficult and dangerous 
than that from Atlanta to the sea had been. In the former march the 
army had moved parallel to the courses of the rivers, but in the march 
through the Carolinas all the streams had to be crossed. Inirther- 
more, Sherman now had for his opponent General Johnston, whose 
ability even Sherman might well stand in fear of. General Hood, 
who had been displaced for the reinstatement of Johnston, had met with 
a severe blow from Thomas, at Nashville, on the 15th of the previous 
December, and popular opinion had demanded his removal. There was 
danger, too, that Lee might slip away from his intrenchments, escape 
the watchful Grant, and launch his whole force against Sherman. The 
fleet, therefore, co-operated with Sherman; watched his progress from 
the coast, and finding points where supplies could be reached, and 
refuge taken, should it be necessary. Sherman met with some opposi- 
tion, but reached Columbia in a short time. As this was the capital of 
South Carolina, it was expected that the army would meet with serious 
opposition, but it was found that the city was only protected by Wade 
Hampton's cavalry. True, the bridges had been burned, but these 
were soon rebuilt, and on the 17th of February, Sherman's men marched 



WHIRLING THROUGH WINCHESTER. 559 

into Columbia as Hampton's left it. When they entered, they found 
the air full of burning flakes of cotton, for innumerable bales had been 
piled in the streets and set on fire. The city was in flames in many 
places, and General Sherman ordered his men to aid in extinguishing 
the fire. Sherman has often been accused of burning the place, but he 
positively denies all responsibility for it, though he confesses that some 
of the Union prisoners, who were released upon his arrival in the city, 
may have assisted in spreading the fire after it had begun. The general 
gave the citizens five hundred head of cattle, and did what he could to 
shelter them. However, he destroyed the arsenal and the foundries in 
which the Confederate paper money was printed. Sherman advanced 
into North Carolina, hindered slightly by several conflicts which 
Johnston forced upon him. The march was continued toward Raleigh. 
Thirty-five miles south of that city, on the i6th of March, the left wing 
of the army suddenly came upon Hardee's forces, intrenched upon its 
path. After some hard fighting the Confederates retreated, each side 
having lost five hundred men. On the 19th of March another sharp 
engagement took place at Bentonville, in which the Union loss was one 
thousand six hundred and four men, and the Confederates two thousand 
three hundred and forty-two. This closed Sherman's operations, and 
he rested where he was until terms of peace were made. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History — Whitney's "Who Burnt Columbia?" 
Trezevant's "Burning of Columbia." 
Newhall's "With Sheridan in Lee's Last Campaigfn." 
Pond's "Shenandoah Valley in 1S64." 
Humphrey's "Virginia Caftipaign of '64 and '65." 

Fiction— J. E. Cooke's "Hilt to Hilt." 

Poetry— T. B. Read's "Sheridan's Ride." 



CHAPTER CI. 



u 



®|, inplmn! ffli| inpimn! 



tt 



CLOSING OF THE VIRGINIA CAMPAIGN THE EVACUATION OF RICH- 
MOND SURRENDER OF LEE AT APPOMATTOX COURT 

HOUSE — ASSASSINATION OF PRESI- 
DENT LINCOLN. 



HE closing campaign in Virginia, and that whicli 
practically ended the war, was begun on the 24th 
of March, 1865, when Grant ordered that a grand 
movement be made on the 29th against the Con- 
federate right. Lee hoped to prevent the carry- 
ing out of this plan, and on the 25th made a 
sudden attack at Steedman, near the center of the 
Union lines before Petersburg. The attempt was a com- 
plete failure, and the Confederates lost three thousand 
men, at a time when they could poorly aflford them. On 
the appointed day and hour Grant's movement was begun, 
a very important part of it being assigned to Sheridan, 
who had rejoined the Army of the Potomac. Lee's army 
had been extended to Five Forks, and on the ist of April 
Sheridan attacked this point with such vigor that Lee 
greatly weakened himself to defend the place. Grant promptly assailed 
the works at Petersburg, and carried the exterior lines. The end was 
near. Lee and all of his generals realized this fact. Lee telegraphed to 
Davis at Richmond, that Petersburg must be immediately abandoned. 
The news reached Jefferson Davis as he sat in church. He rose quietly, 
and leaving, made hasty preparations for going south. The night that 
followed was a terrible one in Richmond. The mob broke loose, 
plundered warehouses and dwellings, and committed all sorts of out- 
rages. General Ewell, who commanded there, set fire to the bridges 
and storehouses. There was a high wind, and in a short time a third 
of Richmond was in flames. Early Monday morning a small body of 




"oh, captain! my captain!" 561 

Union troops took possession of Richmond, the Confederate capital. 
They were met by the civil authorities, who announced that the city 
had been evacuated by the army, and surrendered fully. At 4:30 in 
the afternoon, the Union flag floated in the murky air above the court 
house at Petersburg. The Confederates had blown up all their works 
and were in full retreat. Lee thought that there was still hope for 
the Confederacy. He desired to gather his widely scattered forces 
together and to make one more effort. In all he still had forty thousand 
men. If he could reach Johnston, he thought it might be possible to 
escape pursuit, and undertake a different sort of warfare. But he had 
marched out with rations for only one day, expecting to be met with 
large supplies at Amelia Court House. The directions concerning the 
supplies were not explicit, and they went straight on, so that Lee found 
no supplies waiting for him when he reached that place, and had to 
break up his forces into foraging squads. The Union columns were in 
close pursuit, and on the 6th of April, Sheridan struck EwelPs corps of 
the retreating army at Sailor's creek, and took seven thousand prisoners. 
Weary, disheartened and hungry, the rest of the Confederate army 
pressed on, fighting passionately whenever they had an opportunity. 
On the 7th, Grant wrote to Lee proposing to receive the surrender of his 
army. Lee replied that he did not think the case hopeless, but wished 
to know what terms could be offered. Grant's nickname in the army 
was "Unconditional Surrender," and Lee expected that the terms 
would be severe. But Grant only required that the men surrendering 
should not take arms against the Government of the United States 
until properly exchanged. On the 9th, the two commanders met at 
Appomattox Court House, and terms of surrender were formally agreed 
upon. The substance was, that all officers and men should be paroled, 
all public property be turned over, and each officer and man be allowed to 
return to his home, not to be disturbed by the United States authorities 
so long as the paroles were observed and the laws obeyed. The number 
paroled was twenty-eight thousand eight hundred and five. Of these, 
not more than eight thousand had muskets in their hands, for the 
others had flung away their arms in their weary flight. The men were 
permitted to take their horses with them — Grant said they might need 
them for plowing. No cheering, firing of salutes, or any other sign of 
exultation was permitted, and the famished Confederates were fed by 
their victors. 

On the 26th of April, Sheridan, in North Carolina, received the 
surrender of General Johnston upon the same terms, and the surrender 



562 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

of all the Confederate armies soon followed. The number of Johns- 
ton's immediate command surrendered and paroled was thirty-six thou- 
sand eight hundred and seventeen, to whom were added fifty-two 
thousand four hundred and fifty-three in Georgia and Florida. 

In the meantime, the country was shocked by the murder of Presi- 
dent Lincoln. On April 14th, it had been his intention to attend the 
theatre at Washington, with Grant. Grant was unable to attend, and 
Lincoln, rather than disappoint the people, went, accompanied by his 
wife and Major Rathbone. An actor whose moving passion had always 
been an ambition for notoriety, entered his box, shot him, leaped upon 
the stage with a theatrical cr}' of ' ^Sic Semper TyraiDiis! The South 
is avenged," and escaped. 

At the same time that Lincoln was shot, an unsuccessful attempt 
was made upon the life of i\Ir. Seward, Secretary of State, in his own 
house. Mr. Seward was in bed, suffering from injuries received by a 
fall from his carriage, and the steel casing in which his head was sup- 
ported saved his life. 

It was found that a conspirac}' had long been in progress among a 
few half-crazy Secessionists in and about the capital, and that the mur- 
der of Lincoln was the culmination of this. No man has ever been 
mourned as Mr. Lincoln was. His firmness of character, his kind- 
heartedness, his foresight and justice, seemed at times almost super- 
human. Yet he was a man so eminently of the people, and of such 
democratic sympathy, that no one felt awed by him. He was one of 
the best representatives of pure republicanism, a statesman of the 
noble type which should belong to republics, and a man of such spon- 
taneous and abundant humor that he appealed immediately to the 
common heart. A portion of his second inaugural address is worth 
quoting, as it gives an excellent insight into his calm and judicial 
character: 

"Neither party expected for the war the magnitude or the duration 
which it has already attained. Neither anticipated that the cause of 
the conflict might cease when, or even before, the conflict itself should 
cease. Each looked for an easier triumph, and a result less fundamental 
and astonishing. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God, 
and each invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange that 
any man should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their 
bread from the sweat of other men's faces. But let us judge not, that 
we be not judged. The prayers of both could not be answered; that 
of neither has been answered fully. If we shall supj^ose that Ameri- 



"oh, captain! my captain!" 563 

can slavery is one of those offences which in the providence of God 
must come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, 
He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South 
this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, 
shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes 
which the believers in a loving God always ascribes to Him? Fondly 
do we hope, fer\^ently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may 
speedily pass away. Yet if God wills that it continue until all the 
wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unre- 
quited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the 
lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three 
thousand years ago, so still it must be said: 'The judgments of the 
Lord are true and righteous altogether. ' With malice toward none, 
with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see 
the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in, to bind up the 
national wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and 
for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish 
a just and a lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." 

Mr. Lincoln was buried at his old home in Springfield, Illinois, 
which he had left four years before. No day passes that his grave is 
not visited, and the ver>' clovers which grow about it are treasured in 
thousands of homes. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History— Davis' "Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government." 
Mahoney's "Prisoner of State." 
Raymond's "History of Lincoln's Administration.'' 
Boykin's "Evacuation of Richmond." 

Grayson's "Great Conspiracy. Secret of the Assassination Plot." 
Poetry— Florence Anderson's "Surrender of the Army of Northern Virginia." 



CHAPTER CII. 



ff 



ADMINISTRATION OF ANDREW JOHNSON — CAPTURE OF JEFFERSON 
DAVIS — RECONSTRUCTION — IMPEACHMENT OF PRESI- 
DENT JOHNSON — PURCHASE OF ALASKA — 
RETURNING PROSPERITY TO 
THE UNION. 



"^^NDREW JOHNSON, of Tennessee, Vice-President 
with Lincoln, now became the President of the 
Republic. He took the oath of office on the 15th 
of April, 1865, thus becoming the seventeenth 
Chief Magistrate of the United States. His first 
act was to offer large rewards for the arrest of 
Jefferson Davis, President of the recent Confederacy, 
and his official associates. Davis, with a small escort, 
had fled southward, hoping to reach the Gulf coast and 
make his way out of the country. But on the loth 
of May he was overtaken by a detachment of Federal 
troops, under Colonel Pritchard. He was then at 
Irwinsville, in the heart of Southern Georgia. Colonel 
Pritchard and his men came suddenly upon Davis' 
encampment in the woods, and captured him while he was trying to 
make his escape partly disguised in a woman's waterproof cloak. It is 
said that had not his heavy cavalr}' boots showed from below the cloak, 
his identity would not have been suspected. He was taken to Fortress 
Monroe, and kept there for several months under a charge of high 
treason. It developed in time that he had nothing to do with the plot 
for the murder of the President, and as many others were as guilty as he 
of treason, he was set at liberty upon bail. Cornelius Vanderbilt, 
Horace Greeley and Gerrit Smith, a life-long Abolitionist, went upon 
his bond. He has never been tried. As for the murderer of Abraham 
Lincoln, he died a wretched death. He was shot while defending his 





Copyright i&Sk). by R. S. King: Pnh. Co. 

JEFFERSON DAVIS. 

From a photograph by Washburn, New Orleans, iSSS. Engraved expressly for 
The Story of America. 



"ye cankot serve two masters." 565 

life in a burning barn, to which his pursuers had followed him, and 
from which they were trying to drag him. Four of his associates were 
hanged for complicity in the conspiracy, on the 7th of July, 1865. 
Three others were sent to the Dry Tortugas for hard labor during life, 
and another was condemned to six years of hard labor at the same 
place. 

The people of the United States now hoped that these last black 
pages had closed the book of conspiracy, suffering and death which had 
marked the War of Secession. The boys — such as were left of them — 
were sent to their homes. On May 23d, the Army of the Potomac, and 
Sherman's army on the 24th, were reviewed before the Capitol and 
disbanded. In every town there were festivities and rejoicings, and in 
every town, too, there was much sorrow. It had cost the countr>' nearly 
six hundred thousand lives, and more than six billion dollars to destroy 
the doctrine of State Sovereignty. But the United States was now 
established as a nation. Every man within its territory was free, and 
the people of the North were as magnanimous as possible toward the 
men they had defeated. The countr>' was scarred with battle fields 
and graves, but among the judicious there was a desire to forget and to 
heal. 

The task before the National Government was a great one. The 
people had troubled at the thought of it, even with the calm and just 
Lincoln to guide them. Without him, it seemed still more serious. 
To begin with, the financial condition of the country was as bad as it 
well could be. Gold was far below par. The National debt was two 
billion seven hundred and fifty-six million four hundred and thirt^'-one 
thousand five hundred and seventy-one dollars. The taxes laid upon 
the people were as high as they could well endure — not that they 
complained about tjbem. In the States where the insurrection had 
existed, there was the greatest confusion. The people were divided on 
the question of what should be done with them. There were those 
who thought that treason was a crime which could never be regarded 
as a mere difference of political opinion, and that a crime so serious 
deserved serious punishment. Others believed that since the seceding 
States had been forced to remain in the Union, they should be 
represented upon the same basis, and with the same privileges, as the 
other States. No provisions had been made in the Constitution for the 
readmission of a State that had claimed the right to secede, and had 
withdrawn from the Union. On one hand, there was a fear that the 
negroes of the South, who outnumbered -the whites, might take the 



566 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

government of the South into their own hands — a most groundless fear 
to any acquainted with the negro disposition — and on the other hand 
there was a well-based fear that the negroes might be governed and 
controlled by their old masters in a spirit utterly at variance with 
justice and humanity. President Johnson did not understand how a 
State could be punished for treason. He therefore issued proclamations 
of qualified amnesty, removed the blockade from the ports as well as 
the restriction upon commercial intercourse with the border States. He 
appointed resident civilians as provisional governors over North Caro- 
lina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. 
He asked these States to hold conventions, with a view of organizing 
State governments, and for the purpose of securing the election of 
representatives to Congress. The States were required to repeal the 
ordinances of secession, accept the abolition of slavery, repudiate the 
Southern war debts, and ratify, by a vote of the people, the several 
constitutional amendments. Before Congress met, in December, five 
States had formed with constitutions, and elected State ofificers and 
representatives to Congress. The Republicans were not satisfied with 
what the President had done, and looked to Congress for some modifi- 
cation of his action. 

While Mr. Johnson's reorganization policy was causing those who 
engaged in the rebellion to congratulate themselves upon the ease with 
which they had escaped punishment, eleven different States prepared 
laws which were in direct defiance to liberty. These laws were called 
the "Black Codes" in the North. Mississippi enacted a law denying 
the ex-slave the right to acquire and dispose of public property. In 
several States, it was made a criminal offence, punishable with fine and 
imprisonment, for a freedman to leave his employer before the expira- 
tion of the term of service prescribed in a written contract. In one 
State, it was made a criminal offence for a negro to intrude himself into 
any religious or other assembly of white persons, into an}- railroad car or 
other public vehicle set apart for the exclusive accommodation of white 
people, upon conviction of which he should be sentenced to stand in a 
pillory for one hour, or be whipped not exceeding thirty-nine stripes, 
or both at the discretion of the jury. 

When Congress met in December, 1865, with a Republican majority 
in both Houses, it hastened to appoint a committee to inquire into the 
condition of the States which formed the so-called Confederacy of 
America, and report whether they were entitled to be represented in 
either House of Congress. -This committee was known as the Recon- 



"ye cannot serve two masters." 567 

struction Committee, and their report was looked for by Congress and 
the entire nation with the utmost anxiety. They did not report till 
the following summer of 1866, and in the meantime the States which had 
seceded were not allowed representation in Congress. The attitude of 
Congress offended the President, and in a speech to the populace in 
front of the presidential mansion, he denounced the Republican party 
which had elected him to office. Thenceforth he made constant war 
upon the legislative branch of the Government, and caused such Cabinet 
members to resign as could not agree with him. He refused to pass a 
bill which provided for the reservation of three million acres of public 
land in the South for occupation by former slaves, and also vetoed a bill 
designed to confer the right of citizenship upon the freedmen, and to 
provide means for protecting them in the right. But Congress passed 
this bill over the veto of the President. It also passed the Fourteenth 
Amendment over the President's veto. The Fourteenth Amendment 
declared that all persons born or naturalized in the United States are 
citizens, and forbid any State to make or enforce any law which 
abridged the privileges of these citizens. In February, 1867, a bill was 
entered for the admission of Nebraska, which stipulated that Nebraska 
should never deny the right of voting to any person on account of his 
race or color. The President vetoed the bill, but Congress passed it 
over his veto. 

On the 6th of February, 1867, a bill to provide efficient govern- 
ments for the States in insuiTection was read in the House. The States 
of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, 
Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas and Arkansas were divided into 
five military districts, each under the government of a military officer, 
who should govern them by civil tribunals whenever he should decide 
them to be more appropriate than military commissions. The bill pro- 
vided that these States should establish constitutions satisfactory to 
Congress, and not conflicting with the Constitution of the United States. 
The President vetoed this bill, but it was passed by Congress. 

At this time Secretary Stanton was removed by the President from 
his position as Secretary of War. Stanton refused to resign, and Con- 
gress supported him in his refusal. For this and other reasons President 
Johnson was impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors. After a long 
trial, which closed on May 16, 1868, the vote for conviction was thirty- 
five and for acquittal nineteen. As it needed the vote of two-thirds of 
the Senators for conviction, the President was acquitted. 

During Lincoln's administration West Virginia was formally ad- 



568 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



mitted to the Union as a separate State. This was in 1863. ^^ 1867 
Nebraska was admitted as a State of the Union. The immense region 
called Alaska had also been purchased from the Russian Government, 




in 1867, for more than seven million dollars. Its area is about half a' 
million square miles, and this brought the whole area to about three 



"ye cannot serve two masters." 569 

million five hundred thousand square miles, instead of the original eight 
hundred thousand. There were now thirty-seven States and twelve 
Territories, with a population of more than thirty-eight million. 

The year 1866 was marked by the laying of a successful and per- 
manent Atlantic cable. A strong, flexible cable was shipped on board 
the Great Eastern, which, after a prosperous voyage, arrived at Heart's 
Content, Newfoundland. It then returned to the mid-Atlantic, where 
the end of the cable which had been laid in 1865 was grappled, and a 
splice was made. This line has never failed, and marine cables have 
increased rapidly since. 

In 1867 the National Grange, for the promotion of the farming 
interests of the country, was organized at Washington. This order has 
now spread all over the United States, and though the enthusiasm which 
attended its birth has died out, it has done not a little toward elevating 
the condition of the farmer, increasing the value of his products, and 
putting him on a firmer business footing with the consumer. 

The Union Pacific Railroad, which crosses nine mountain ranges 
and links the Atlantic with the Pacific, was completed on May 10, 1869, 
at Promontory Point, Utah. The last tie of laurel wood, with a plate of 
silver upon it, was laid, and the last spike, composed of iron, silver and 
gold, was driven in the presence of many onlookers. The telegraph 
wires were attached to the last rail, and the blows telegraphed to many 
parts of the continent the completion of the road. The total length of 
the road is two thousand miles. Its cost was one hundred and twelve 
million two hundred and fifty-nine thousand three hundred and sixty 
dollars. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History — Partridge's "Making- of the American Nation." 

Loring's "Historj' of Reconstruction." 

W. H. Bancroft's "Alaska." 

Field's "History of American Telegraph." 
Fiction — A. W. Tourgee's "Hot Plowshares." 

A. W. Tourgee's "Bricks Without Straw." 

A. W. Tourgee's "A Fool's Errand." 

C. Reid's "Valerie Aylmer." 
Poetry— Lowell's "Washers of the Shroud." 

Walt Whitman's "My Captain." 



CHAPTER cm. 



ADMINISTRATION OF GRANT — THE KU-KLUX KLAN — THE CHICAGO 

FIRE — THE CUSTER MASSACRE — THE PANIC OF 1 873 — ^THE 

CENTENNIAL EXPOSITION — ADMINISTRATION OP 

PRESIDENT HAYES — RAILROAD 

RIOTS OF 1877. 




:ENERAL ULYSSES S. GRANT, whose sendees 
during the war had so endeared him to the hearts 
of the American people, was elected by the 
Rej^nblican party, and inaugurated as President 
of the United States in 1869. During his admin- 
istration all the seceded States became finally 
restored to the Union. The enormous debt incurred 
during the war was very greatly decreased. More than 
one-fifth of it ($600,000,000) was paid. Meanwhile, 
Congress had passed the Fifteenth Amendment to the 
Constitution. This amendment reads: 

I. The right of citizens of the United States to vote 
shall not be abridged by the United States, or by any 
State, on account of race, color or previous condition of 
servitude. 
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appro- 
priate legislation. 

The South was in a fever of anxiety about what it termed ' 'negro 
supremacy." It claimed that the freedom of speech and press had been 
overthrown; that the American capital was converted into a bastile, 
and that a system of spies and official espionage had been established, 
to which no constitutional monarchy of Europe would dare to resort. 
Matters in the South had been complicated by the fact that at the close 
of the war thousands of Northern men had settled there. These 
Northern settlers met with a hostile reception, and their interference in 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF I.IBERTY. 57 1 

the government of the South aroused the wildest indignation. They 
were termed "Carpet-Baggers," for the reason that they usually stayed 
but a short time in the South, and, metaphorically speaking, carried 
their possessions in a carpet-bag. The more liberal men of all parties 
are willing to admit now that these "Carpet-Baggers" were often 
guilty of ill-timed and officious acts. It was largely their presence in 
the South which called into existence the terrible secret society known 
as the Ku-Klux Klan. In some places this society was known as the 
"Pale Faces," and in others, as the "Knights of White Camelia." 
These wished to frighten the ex-slaves, in order to keep them from 
taking part in the elections; to rid the country of "Carpet-Baggers," 
and to sustain, as far as might be, the former slave-holding power in 
the ' 'irreconcilable South. ' ' This order prevailed in all parts of the 
Confederacy, and was so secret that no member knew who any of the 
others might be. When the men met they were always masked. This 
organization sent out armed men, who patrolled communities, intimi- 
dating men, and committing murder and other crimes. As the identity 
of the members could not be proved, they were neither caught nor tried. 
So great was the alarm caused by the Ku-Klux that the Governor 
of Tennessee, in 1868, called an extra session of the legislature, 
to provide measures of protection against the order. A committee 
reported that for six months, saying nothing of other outrages, the 
murders had averaged not less than one in each twenty-four hours. It 
reported that in fourteen counties of North Carolina, there had been 
eighteen murders and three hundred and fifteen whippings. In twenty- 
nine counties of Georgia, there were seventy-two murders and one hun- 
dred and twenty-six whippings. In twenty-six counties of Alabama, 
two hundred and fifteen murders and one hundred and sixteen other 
outrages, and in Louisiana, in 1868, there were more than one thousand 
murders. The particulars of this persecution by the Ku-Klux are as 
wild, romantic and terrible as any tale of feudal and uncivilized times; 
to re-admit the seceded States into the Union under such circum- 
stances, was a delicate and a dangerous task. The chief requirement 
for re-admission was, that each of the States should ratify the Fifteenth 
Amendment. Congress now determined that the amendment should be 
enforced, and authorized the President to use the army to prevent 
violations of law, and make penal any interference, by fraud or force, 
with the right of full and free manhood suffrage. Federal supervisors 
were appointed to oversee elections in cities of over twenty thousand 
inhabitants. This continued for several vears. 



572 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

In 1 87 1, the people of the Northwest suffered a great blow from the 
partial destruction by fire of Chicago, the commercial center and the 
chief port of that district. The fire broke out on the 8th of October, 
and originated from the explosion of a lamp kicked over by an angr}- 
cow. For two days it raged almost unchecked, and was sustained by a 
fierce wind. It spread over two thousand one hundred and twenty-four 
acres, and destroyed seventeen thousand four hundred and fifty build- 
ings. The loss was almost one hundred and seventy-five million 
dollars, and ninety-eight thousand people were made homeless. At the 
same time a terrible fire devastated Northeastern Wisconsin. Here the 
fire was accompanied by a hurricane, and swept through forests, fields 
and villages, leaving nothing but charred earth in its track. Over one 
thousand lives were lost. The town of Peshtigo was entirely swept out 
of existence. Here the fire rushed upon them with a loud roar, 
apparently almost out of the sky, and without any warning. Six 
hundred lives were lost in this town alone. Throughout the northern 
part of Michigan there were similar experiences, and indeed the entire 
Northwest suffered from fires, any one of which would have been famous 
at another time, but which, in a year of general catastrophe, were thought 
little of. The season was one of unprecedented dryness, the air was hot 
and the wind high, and this accounted, no doubt, for the frequency of 
these disasters. 

Meanwhile, in spite of all difficulties and drawbacks, the American 
nation had been rapidly progressing. Its triumphs of mechanical 
ingenuity were unequaled. Its literature, its science, its art, were 
beginning to win recognition. Its system of popular education was 
remarkable. It had been proved to the world that a republican govern- 
ment on a large scale was practicable, and that the people were as well 
able to defend their principles as a king to defend his. Even the 
constant arrival of thousands of emigrants unacquainted with repub- 
lican ideas, and full of an inherited dislike for government, was not able 
to seriously hinder the onward sweep of improvement. It was several 
years later before these people became so numerous or their mistaken 
ideas so prominent as to cause concern. 

In the autumn of 1872, President Grant was re-elected. Henry 
Wilson was chosen Vice-President, in the place of Schuyler Colfax. 
Shortly after Grant's second inauguration, in 1873, the Government 
became involved in troubles with the Modoc Indians. At a friendly 
conference, the Indians murdered General Canby and a clerg>^man, in 
April of 1873. Four of the leaders were hanged in the following 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF LIBERTY. 573 

October for their treachery. But the insincerity was not all upon the 
side of the Indians, and the policy of the Government toward this 
unhappy race of people has always been vacillating and selfish. Late 
in June, 1876, General Custer and his command of three hundred men 
were attacked at Little Big Horn river, in Montana Territory, and 
destroyed. Only one man escaped to tell the particulars of the direful 
defeat. The terrible manner in which these men met their death, and 
the indignities which were committed upon their dead bodies, aroused 
the keenest horror, and the management of the Indians from that time 
on has been more severe. 

Mention should be made of two great political parties which had 
been formed, and which, though neither of them have been in power or 
even near to power, have had much influence in political as well as 
moral matters. The Temperance party was organized in 1872, and 
consisted of a national combination of local temperance organizations, 
which had been in existence for many years. This received the name 
of the Prohibition Reform party, in 1876. It awakened much enthu- 
siasm in the cause of temperance, and in the course of time Maine, New 
Hampshire, Vermont, Rhode Island, Kansas and Iowa adopted prohi- 
bition principles, making it a punishable crime to sell liquor within the 
limits of the States. A number of other States are known as Local 
Option States, and have prohibitory districts. The second party 
mentioned is known as the Labor Reform National party. It grew out 
of the combinations of workingmen called Trades' Unions. How this 
party was weakened in later years by the movements of a body of men 
known as Anarchists, and too often confounded by unthinking persons 
with the men of the labor party, must be told in another chapter. 

In 1873 occurred a great financial panic, which spread in the course 
of the year over the whole country. Firms in every part of the Union 
failed, and business for the time was almost paralyzed. The effect upon 
the laboring classes was most unfortunate. Everyone was afraid of 
losing money and locked it up, when it was most needed by the people. 
Mills were closed, great railroad enterprises suddenly abandoned, and 
speculation ceased. The great credit system was largely at fault for 
this commercial crash,, and the business of the country was perilously 
speculative in its nature. It turned thousands of tramps upon the 
country; it ruined thousands of rich men, and, perhaps, among other 
things, it brought a few rich men to their senses, and showed them that 
honest industry is worth much more than a genius for speculation. It 
was four years before the country recovered from the results of this panic. 



574 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



In this year Elisha Gray, of Chicago, invented the instrument which 
became the basis of the modern telephone. The adaptation of it to the 
human voice, in 1873, by Professor Bell, of Boston, completed the 
invention. 

Grant's second administration was marked by some grave political 
scandals, among which was that of the Credit Mobilier. This was a 
corporation which placed a large amount of money in the Union Pacific 
Company, and induced many men of capital to embark in the enter- 
prise, and to take stock both in the Union Pacific Company and in the 
Credit Mobilier Company. Mr. Oakes Ames was a leader in this 
enterprise, and he presented shares of stock to a considerable number of 
members of Congress. It was claimed that he did this for the purpose 
of keeping Congress friendly and favorable to the Pacific Railroad, and 
it occasioned much concern and indignation throughout the United 
States, for it was feared that bribery might become open and frequent 
in Congress, and the liberty of the people seriously endangered. The 
only punishment which Mr. Oakes Ames and his most culpable 
sympathizer, James Brooks, received, was the absolute condemnation of 
the House. Both gentlemen died within three months after these 
resolutions of condemnation were passed, broken in reputation and 
self-respect. Without doubt, however, briber>' of one sort or another is 
frequent at Washington. 

The Democratic party at about this time demanded investigations of 
the New York Custom House, the United States Treasury, the Navy 
Department and various other institutions, but comparatively little was 
proved against the Administration. In the South, matters became so 
grave that General Sheridan was sent to New Orleans to see that law 
and order was enforced there, and to oppose the movements of the 
White League. This league had constantly assaulted and disfran- 
chised the blacks, so that it became necessary to protect the freedmen. 
Shortly after this was done the country became disturbed by another 
scandal. This was an extensive whisky ring, organized to control 
legislation so as to avoid revenue taxes. It consisted of an association 
of distillers, in collusion with Federal officers, and succeeded for a time 
in defrauding the Government of the tax on spirituous liquors. Follow- 
ing this came the impeachment of William W. Belknap, the Secretary 
of War. He was charged with selling an Indian trading post. Up to 
this time he had been much respected, and it was a great grief to the 
people that he should have been found guilty of treachery. 

It is pleasant to turn from these dark political pages to the centennial 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF LIBERTY. 



575 



celebration of the independence of the United States. There were 
festivals and meetings all over the United States, and a great inter- 




national exhibition was held at Philadelphia in honor of the event. 



576 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Thirty-three nations were represented by their industries, and almost ten 
million people visited the exhibition, so that nearly four million dollars 
were received for admission alone. A great impulse was given to 
American industry, and the United States had much cause to be proud 
of its inventive skill, and some cause, to tell the truth, to be ashamed 
of its art work, which was poor, compared with that of the older nations. 
During the year 1876 Colorado was admitted into the Union as a State, 
making thirty-eight States and eleven territories. 

The next presidential election was attended with much excitement. 
Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, and William A. Wheeler, of New York, 
were the presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the Republican 
party. Those of the Democratic party were Samuel J. Tilden, of New 
York, and Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana. The votes of the States 
were very closely divided between these two candidates, and the decision 
depended upon the votes of two doubtful States. It was generally 
admitted that the Democrats had legally chosen one hundred and eighty- 
four electors 'and the Republicans one hundred and seventy-three, but 
the four votes of Florida and the eight votes of Louisiana were in doubt. 
If all of these were to be counted for Mr. Hayes he would have a 
majority of one. The Returning Boards of these two States declared that 
Republican electors had been chosen. These Boards were bodies of 
men appointed after the war by the laws of these States, and were 
authorized not only to count the votes actually cast, but to throw out 
the votes of neighborhoods where there had been violence or intimida- 
tion. The Republicans maintained that these Boards had exercised 
their power rightfully, but the Democrats claimed that they had unjustly 
thrown out a great many Democratic votes which should rightfully have 
been counted. The Republicans thought that the fraud and violence 
of the Democrats in some parts of these States had been so great as to 
justify the action of the Returning Boards. The question was a difficult 
one, and there was nothing in the Constitution to aid in its settlement. 
Throughout the country the excitement was great, and many feared 
that a civil war was at hand. Week after week passed by and at length 
the wiser men of both parties in Congress decided that the best plan was 
to appoint an Electoral Commission, to which all doubtful votes should 
be referred. Five Senators, five Representatives and fiv^e Justices of the 
Supreme Court composed this body, and it decided by a vote of eight to 
seven that the votes of Florida and Louisiana must be counted as the 
Returning Boards had reported them, because these Boards had been 
legally appointed by those particular States, and the other States could 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF LIBERTY. 577 

not revise or reject their returns. This decision gave Hayes and 
Wheeler one hundred and eighty-five votes, and Tilden and Hendricks 
one hundred and eighty-four. Hayes and Wheeler were therefore 
declared to be elected, and were inaugurated on March 5, 1877, tut 
during the whole of their administration there was a bitter spirit between 
the two parties, and the Democrats could not forget that the Electoral 
Commission had been composed of eight Republicans and seven Demo- 
crats, and that all of these men had voted precisely as their party prin- 
ciples had prompted them to do. Fortunately, Mr. Hayes was a man 
of peaceable and conciliatory disposition. Though not a brilliant man, 
he was ambitious to be a just one. Mr. Hayes began by making up 
his Cabinet from both parties, which was a very uncommon thing. It 
had long been the motto of the parties "to the victor belongs the spoils," 
and following up this motto the Presidents conferred the offices within 
their appointment upon those who had supported them, regardless of 
their ability or honesty of purpose. Mr. Hayes, therefore, gave offence. 
He withdrew all United States soldiers from the State Houses of any of 
the States which had belonged to the Confederacy, and prohibited the 
interference of United States troops with the elections in those States. 
Many of the people objected seriously to this, and especially to the with- 
drawal of troops from South Carolina, which of all the States of the 
South was the most difficult to control. But the President insisted that 
his principle was right, and that since South Carolina had been read- 
mitted as a State, she could not be treated as conquered territory. The 
effect was indeed beneficial, and the States continued to grow more 
peaceful from that time on. Injustice, intimidation and contempt cer- 
tainly exist still in the treatment of the colored people, but it is hoped 
that by another generation this will die out, and many negroes have 
taken the remedy into their own hands. During the summer of 1879 
there was a great exodus of the negroes from the States of the South to 
those of the Northwest. The negroes were received kindly in Kansas 
and Indiana, and have therefore settled extensively in those States. 

During the summer of 1877, our Government engaged in a war with 
the hitherto friendly Nez Perces Indians. These were subdued by our 
arms as usual, and made our enemies. 

The Government and banks of the United States resumed specie pay- 
ments on January i, 1879. It was feared among business men that this 
might cause much embarrassment, but the change from paper money 
to silver and gold was accomplished with ease. During Hayes' admin- 
istration there was a great agitation concerning the emigration of natives 



578 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

of China into the United States. The workingmen claimed that they 
lowered the price of American labor, and protested that they could not 
compete with them. The President vetoed the bill restricting their 
emigration, but the newspapers did not permit the subject to die out, 
and in 1888 the bill restricting emigration was passed. 

It was during Hayes' administration that the agitation of the work- 
ingmen began to have its serious effect. In July, 1877, there was a 
ereat convulsion among the railroad hands on the central roads of the 
United States. The beginning was on July 17th, when the brakemen 
and firemen on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad refused to work, and 
prevented others from working, because their wages had been reduced 
ten per cent. By the next day the entire road was in possession of the 
strikers. A call for aid was made upon the Government, to which 
President Hayes responded with a body of Federal troops and a procla- 
mation to the rioters to disperse. At Pittsburg, there was a special 
intensity of feeling, and the excitement was great in Chicago. The 
Tradesmen's Union held a meeting and resolutions were passed demand- 
ing concessions from the companies. By the 20th, Pittsburg was com- 
pletely in the power of the rioters, and fifteen hundred trains were 
stopped. At Baltimore, the Maryland regiments were ordered out, and 
as they were leaving their armor\- were met by a crowd of several thou- 
sand. These stoned the regiments until they were obliged to fire in self- 
defense. Several men were killed. On the 21st, the State militia of 
Pennsylvania arrived at Pittsburg and a terrible scene of riot and vio- 
lence followed. The militia found their enemies so formidable that 
they took refuge in the railroad round-house. From here they fired 
upon the crowd. The mob had sacked the gun stores, and returned the 
fire with enthusiasm. By setting fire to some cars of pretroleum they 
forced the militia to leave the round-house. The fire spread rapidly 
and the railroad property was soon in ruins. Throughout the 2 2d and 
23d the disturbance continued. 

Serious riots broke out in Philadelphia, and the excitement spread 
to Chicago, St. Louis and San Francisco. But before a fortnight was 
over order was restored. Some of the companies compromised with the 
strikers, and others ran their trains with new employes. 

The following year was marked by a terrible plague in the South. 
Seven thousand deaths were caused in the months of August, September 
and October of 1878, by yellow fever. Whole villages were deserted 
by the panic which accompanied it, and the industries of the South, 
still young and uncertain, were almost crushed by the disaster. 



A HUNDRED YEARS OF LIBERTY. 579 

During- this year Thomas A. Edison brought the phonograph to the 
attention of the world. This remarkable instrument, which is now 
becoming of practical use, will repeat, after any interval of time, the 
words which have been spoken into it. The mechanical inventions in 
the United States within the last twenty-five years have been unprece- 
dented for their number and their utility. The utilization of natural 
gas for heat and light, the heating of houses by steam, the common use 
of hydraulic power, the progress in mining, and the experiments in 
explosives, not to mention the improvements in looms and all sorts of 
practical machinery, are remarkable. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

History — Andreas' "History of Chicago." 

Phelps' "Life and Public Serv-ices of U. S. Grant." 

Howard's "Life of Hayes." 
Fiction— Mrs. Whitney's "A Summer in Leslie Goldthait's Life." 

J. G. Holland's "Arthur Bomucastle." 

O. \V. Holmes' "Elsie Venner." 

H. W. Beecher's "Norwood." 

Mrs. Stovve's "Oldtown Folks." 

F. B. Aldrich's "Queen of Sheba." 

F. B. Aldrich's "Margery Daw." 

Mrs. St. John's "Bella."' 
Poetry — Whittier's "Centennial Hj'mn." 

E. Renaud's "Chicago." 

Longfellow's "Revenge of Rain-on-Face." 



CHAPTER CIV. 

i|3 ©lit !f H^mnrbl 



ELECTION AND DEATH OF PRESIDENT JAMES A. GARFIELD — ADMIN- 
ISTRATION OF ARTHUR — THE ANARCHISTS 
(^\ OF CHICAGO. 



N the National Convention of 1880, the Repub- 
licans nominated James A. Garfield, of Ohio, for 
President, and Chester A. Arthur, of New York, 
for Vice-President. The Democrats nominated 
Winfield S. Hancock, of New York, and William 
H. English, of Indiana. At this election the 
Republicans won by a decided majority, and President 
Garfield was inaugurated March 4, 1881. Garfield's 
administration opened with what was known as a dead- 
lock in the Senate, which was a mere matter of party, 
but which, at the time, caused no little discussion. 
President Garfield announced it as his intention to make a 
great effort to rid the United States of the shame of polyg- 
amy, which exists in Utah, and his best efforts would 
doubtless have been devoted to this end but for his untimely death. 
On July 2, 1 88 1, while waiting for a train in the railway station 
at Washington, President Garfield was shot and mortally wounded by 
a half-insane creature, whose name deserves no place in histor}-. The 
President was taken to the White House, where he lay between life and 
death for many weeks. He confessed to a great desire for being near 
the sea, and on September 6th, was taken to Elberon, New Jersey. 
Here, on the nineteenth of September, he died, mourned by the whole 
nation. His industrious, wholesome life, and the fact that he had risen 
from a poor boyhood, worked his way through college till he stood at 
the head of it, served faithfully in camp till he became a general, and 
maintained his position in Congress with so much dignity that he was 
chosen President, made him seem to the youth of America the typical 





JAMES A. GARFIELD. 



THE OLD HAYMARKET. 581 

man of the Republic. He was mourned in Europe as well as in 
America, and when he died, the British court, as well as the friends of 
the President at Washington, went into mourning. His death was not 
the result of any conspiracy, nor of political hostility, but the act of 
one egotistical and half-insane man, who was angry at being refused an 
office. The murderer was tried, and hung on June 30, 1882. Mean- 
while, Vice-President Arthur had succeeded to the presidency, taking 
the oath of office at New York, September 20, 1881, and again more 
formally, two days after, at Washington. No new States were added to 
the Union during Arthur's administration. The nation was prosperous 
and peaceful, and Arthur's inaugural address was notable by reason of 
its being the first one in twenty years that contained no reference 
to the Southern States as a distinct part of the nation. It was evident 
that the great sectional contest was drawing to an end, and all the 
bitterness of feeling which had attended it was disappearing. 

The histor}' of a nation should not be made up of its wars and its 
disasters. By rights, the greater part of its pages should be devoted to 
those intervals of peace when education flourishes, industry' increases, 
and the influence of home life is most felt. At such times one may, if he 
chooses, estimate rightly the comparative position of his nation, its 
advantages and disadvantages, and judge rightly its value to the world. 

In 1879, as has been said, specie payment was resumed in the United 
States, and ever since that time the national currency has been at par 
value. Any one who possesses a paper dollar can receive a gold or silver 
dollar for it without difficulty. This placed commerce upon a more 
certain foundation. Industr}- has gradually increased, and we have 
begun to manufacture many articles which we formerly imported 
almost entirely from Europe. Watches, cotton, woolen, silk, the finest 
musical instruments, carriages, furniture, cutler}-, railroad iron, carpets 
and decorative fabrics are among those industries which have been 
taken up at a comparatively recent time, and the products of which are 
sold, not only in America, but on the other side of the water. In other 
ways we are not doing as well as we once did. We no longer possess a 
navy of any sort whatever, and no foreign sea is ever decorated with 
the American flag. This has come largely from the fact that iron vessels 
have taken the place of wooden ones, and that England has greater 
advantages for building iron vessels than America possesses. As it is a 
law that a vessel must carr}' the flag of the countr}' it is built in, the 
purchase of vessels will not remedy this deficiency. 

Another great drawback in this countr}- is the rapid growth of 



582 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

monopoly. The telegraph, the railroads, oil, coal and many other 
necessities are governed by rich corporations, who are able to ask any 
price that they choose, and have the power to keep down all competition. 
A large class of men who follow the teachings of a modern economist 
and philosopher named Henrv^ George, believe that all necessities of 
this sort should be owned and managed by the Government. They 
also believe that land should be public property as much as air or 
water. The great question of the country is at present, and must 
remain for many years, the adjustment of capital and labor. There has 
long been a cry from all parts of the country for co-operative work. A 
foolish and impassioned set of men, most of whom are emigrants from 
the monarchies of Europe, and known as Anarchists, are among those 
who have formed themselves into a party to combat monopoly and 
undue wealth. 

On May 4, 1885, this discontent culminated in a terrible tragedy 
at the city of Chicago. An open-air meeting was held by the discon- 
tented party at the old Haymarket, on the West Side of the city. As the 
attitude of these men had been threatening for several weeks, a company 
of policemen were sent to preserve order. Their presence and their 
demeanor inflamed the wrath of some madman in the crowd, and a 
dynamite bomb was thrown into their midst, killing one policeman 
immediately and wounded sixty-seven others. The bomb was probably 
thrown by a German named Schnaubelt. This man fled, and was never 
captured. Seven policemen in all died, from the results of the riot. 
The city was seriously alarmed. There were rumors of a great con- 
spiracy. It was whispered that a plot existed to burn the city to the 
ground. A raid was made on the office of the Arbeiter Zeitung^ the 
organ of the Anarchists. Here dynamite bombs and infernal machines 
were found, as well as a large number of circulars on which there was 
an appeal to the workmen to arm themselves. It is said by the friends 
of the Anarchists that these circulars were not intended for distribution. 
They maintained that some ill-advised person had put that appeal upon 
the circulars without the knowledge of the men who were to speak at 
the Haymarket meeting which the circulars announced. It is said that 
Albert Parsons, one of the best known of the Anarchist leaders, refused 
to speak at the meeting unless other circulars were printed which did 
not contain that seditious injunction. These milder circulars had been 
printed and circulated, and those left in the office, it is said, were to be 
destroyed. But even when this point is conceded, it does not explain 
the presence of dynamite. 



THE OLD HAYMARKET. 583 

Bight leaders of the Anarchists were arrested on charge of conspiracy 
and murder. They were August Spies, Albert R. Parsons, Samuel 
Fielden, Oscar Neebe, George Engel, Louis Ling, Michael Schwab and 
Adolph Fischer. It is maintained by the Anarchists that some of these 
men were not acquainted with each other; that they had never met 
until they were brought together in the court-room, and that obviously 
no conspiracy could have existed between them. On the other hand, it 
was maintained by many witnesses that each of these men had been 
heard making incendiary speeches, and evidence was brought before 
the grand jury which convinced that body that a conspiracy had 
actually existed for the destruction of the city. It is, however, 
admitted by all that the excitement of the time caused injustice to at 
least a part of these men. They were far from being equally guilty; 
they had not all acted in complicity, and they should have had separate 
trials. But the terrible sufferings of the policemen who were the 
victims of these misguided men worked upon the sympathies of the 
people, and interfered to some extent with the cause of justice. On 
August 3d, after a long trial, a verdict of guilty was rendered. Oscar 
Neebe was given fifteen years in the penitentiary. The rest of the men 
were sentenced to be hung. Before the ominous day of execution 
was reached, a petition, signed by the leading citizens of the city, begged 
a commutation of sentence for Fielden and Schwab, who were more 
temperate and judicious than their compatriots. As a consequence, 
these two men were condemned to life imprisonment. Before the day 
of execution, Louis Ling, the most impassioned and the youngest of the 
condemned Anarchists, committed suicide by setting fire to a dynamite 
cartridge in his mouth. It is held by some of the Anarchists that he 
did not commit suicide, but was murdered by the jail ofiicials, who gave 
him a loaded cigar to smoke. He died within a few hours. A short 
time before his death a dynamite bomb was found in his cell. As 
all persons who visited the Anarchists were thoroughly searched before 
they were admitted to the jail, and as officers were present at every 
interview, the way in which that bomb came to be in his cell has 
always been an unsolved myster>'. The manner in which it was found 
was suspicious. Ling was awakened from his sleep in the early 
morning, dragged hastily from his room, and confined in another cell. 
The jail officials then produced a bomb, which they claimed was found 
beneath his bed. Their word may be taken for what it was worth. 

On the nth of November, 1887, Parsons, Spies, Fischer and Engel 
were hung in the jail on the North Side of the city. They refused to 



584 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

ask for pardon, and died heroically, sincerely believing themselves to be 
the martyrs of a righteous cause. That their efforts were misguided, 
futile and harmful, the judicious cannot doubt, but that they deserved 
death, may well be questioned. Socialism was incalculably injured by 
the agitation of the Anarchists, and the great question of the ameliora- 
tion of the laboring man's lot was in no way solved, either by their lives 
or their deaths. They are remembered with execration by many, with 
unchecked devotion by a few, and with sincere regret by the majority. 
With the exception of Parsons, they were not Americans, and they 
brought to this country the hatred of government which they had 
acquired in Europe. Furthermore, the ruling political party of Chicago 
was Irish, the police force was composed almost entirely of Irishmen, 
and a bitterness of feeling existed between this race and the Germans 
in the cosmopolitan city of the tragedy. The Anarchists were Germans. 
Both the policemen and the Anarchists went to lengths, which were 
prompted by race hatred. The affair was but in a ver\' small degree 
American, but the movement was not an unadulterated injury to 
America, for it inspired her broader-minded people with a judicious pity 
as well as a greater caution. Such men realized that the State should 
not alone cure diseases, but should try to prevent them, and they 
admitted to themselves that had these enthusiastic and impassioned men 
been checked at the proper point, or guided into the right channels, they 
miofht have been saved from themselves. That thev were not altogether 
bad is proven by the fact that a man of clear judgment like William 
Dean Howells, one of the greatest of American writers, chooses to 
publicly and respectfully observe the anniversar)' of their deaths. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

Fiction — R. Edwards' "Twice Defeated." 

G. W. Curtis' "Trumps." 

"The Bread Winners." Anon. 

Mrs. Burnet's "Through One Administration." 

R. H. Newcll's "Avery Glibun." 

Bayard Taylor's "John Godfrey's Fortune." 

R.B. Kimball's "Henry Powers, Banker." 

R. B. Kimball's "Undercurrent of Wall Street." 
Poetry— D. Bethune Duffield's "A Dirge." 

N. P. Willis' Poems. 

George Arnold's Poems. 

O. W. Holmes' Poems. 

T. B. Aldrich's Poems. 




GROVIvK Cl.l':\'lvI.A\l). 



CHAPTER CV 



PRESIDENT CLEVELAND'S ADMINISTRATION — CIVIL SERVICE REFORM 
AND PENSION BILLS — MANY NOTED UNION GENERALS PASS 
AWAY — DEATH OF GENERAL GRANT — PROMI- 
NENT EVENTS OF FOUR YEARS 
OF DEMOCRATIC 
POWER. 





IFTER twenty-four years of power, the Republican 
party was defeated in the election of 1884. James 
G. Blaine, of Maine, was their candidate for 
President, and John A. Logan, of Illinois, the 
famous general, for Vice-President. The Demo- 
cratic nominees were Grover Cleveland, of New 
York, and Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana. This 
election was marked by a growing spirit of liberality. 
Party lines disappeared to an extent, and there was a 
desire among the more honest men of the nation to 
get rid of what was known as machine politics, and 
to vote for the man who seemed most worthy to ex- 
ercise power. President Cleveland was inaugurated 
March 5, 1885, with Mr. Hendricks as Vice-President, 
who, however, died November 28, 1885. After the 
death of Vice-President Hendricks, a law was passed by Congress, pro- 
viding that in case of the death of both President and Vice-President, 
the Secretary of State should be the successor to the presidency. A 
law had been previously passed, known as the Civil Service Act, under 
which the appointments to certain offices should thenceforth be made 
by competitive examination. The object of this law was to do away 
with the spoils system, to assure greater permanency, and to prevent 
the selection of politicians in the place of reliable and educated 
persons. 



586 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

President Cleveland was born at Caldwell, New Jersey, March 18, 
1837. Three years later he was taken to Fayetteville, near Syracuse, 
New York, where his father, who was a Presb)'terian minister, received 
a salary of one thousand dollars. The boy, Grover Cleveland, was 
given a common school education, and as soon as he was old enou<^h, 
became a clerk in a village store. In 1853, ^^^^ father died at Holland 
Patent, New York, and his son was thrown upon his own resources. 
He went to New York City, and became a teacher of the blind in an 
institution where his brother held a position. A year later he started 
West, and meeting an uncle at Buffalo, settled there. He studied law, 
and was admitted to the bar in 1859. In 1869 he was elected sheriff 
of Erie County, and in 1881 he became mayor of Buffalo. In 1882 he 
was elected Governor of New York by a sweeping majority, unparal- 
leled in the history of /\.merican elections. While he still held office, 
in July, 1884, he was called by the Democratic National Convention to 
be the standard-bearer in the presidential contest. 

After the inauguration, President Cleveland's first duty was to 
announce his Cabinet, and the day he took his oath of office he sent 
the following nominations to the Senate: Secretary of State, Thomas 
F. Bayard, of Delaware; Secretary of the Treasur>-, Daniel IVIanning, 
of New York; Secretary of the Interior, Lucius O. C. Lamar, of 
Mississippi; Secretary of War, William C. Endicott, of IVIassachusetts; 
Secretary of the Navy, William C. Whitney, of New York; Postmaster- 
General, William F. Vilas, of Wisconsin; Attorney-General, Augustus 
H. Garland, of Arkansas. Before the close of the Administration 
there were several changes in the Cabinet, as it was first framed. 
Charles F. Fairchild succeeded Daniel Manning as Secretary of the 
Treasury, Mr. Manning having resigned on account of ill health. 
Lucius O. C. Lamar was appointed to the Supreme Bench, and William 
F. Vilas became Secretary of the Interior, Don M. Dickinson taking 
his place as Postmaster-General. 

The most difficult question that confronted President Cleveland 
was the distribution of official patronage. It had long been the custom 
of the Government to give all appointive offices to its own partisans. 
This usage, well established since the time of President Jackson, was 
the origin and cause of much abuse of office in the various departments 
of the Government. Extreme party men maintained the principle, 
"To the victors belong the spoils." The best politicians advocated 
civil-service reform, and worked against the old practice of appointing 
men for party service, and not for personal ability. In the evenly con- 



CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM. 587 

tested elections of 1880 and 1884, it became necessary for both parties to 
conciliate civil-service reformers. It was they who threw their influence 
for Cleveland in the hotly contested election, and he went into ofiice 
pledged to carry out the views of those who, trusting the sincerity of 
his belief in civil-service reform, had raised him to power. No Chief 
Magistrate ever had more confusing questions to decide, or a more 
difficult work to take up. In his perplexing position, President 
Cleveland showed rare judgment. His sturdy strength of character 
and natural independence of spirit carried him through many a trying 
ordeal, and his most bitter political opponents could not impugn his 
honesty, integrity and common sense. 

During President Cleveland's administration it was rather strange 
that there should be a revival of interest in jegard to the civil war, 
which did not tend to allay sectional feeling between the North and 
the South. Many of the leading participants in the war contributed 
personal reminiscences of the battles in which they fought, and 
although such authentic accounts of the great civil struggle are invalu- 
able from an historical standpoint, they naturally recalled painful 
memories and delayed a perfect amalgamation between former opponents. 
In 1875, General William T. Sherman had published a book contain- 
ing his memories of the war, and Alexander H. Stevens, late Vice- 
President of the Confederacy, had told the stor}^ from the other side in 
a volume called "War Between the States." In 1884 General Grant 
published a series of articles in the Century Magazine^ and the 
wide interest they awakened induced him to prepare his now famous 
"Memoirs." 

During President Cleveland's administration many pension bills 
were brought before Congress. These bills occasioned bitter contro- 
versies and helped to foster sectional prejudices. The President had the 
courage to veto the bills that he considered unworthy or tending 
toward an extravagant or unnecessary expenditure of the public funds. 
But while he vetoed many pension claims, he also signed a great number. 
In 1884, when he entered office, there were thirty-four thousand one 
hundred and ninety-two pension claims allowed, and in 1888 the num- 
ber had been nearly doubled, over sixty thousand names appearing on the 
pension list. Notwithstanding these figures, the fact that President 
Cleveland vetoed various pension bills that had passed Congress, caused 
the Grand Army men to look with disfavor upon his re-election, and 
their influence was one of the causes of his defeat in the campaign of 
1888. 



588 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

While volumes were being written about the war, many of its heroes 
passed away. In a single }'ear, several Union generals died. At the 
beginning of the summer of 1885, the public announcement that 
General Grant was stricken with a fatal malady saddened the entire 
nation. For many months the hero of Vicksburg and Appomattox 
battled bravely with disease until, on the 23d of July, he sank peacefully 
to rest at the summer cottage on Mt. McGregor. The brave old man, 
after traveling around the world and being entertained by half the kings 
of earth, died in comparative poverty, and, what was worse, with a cloud 
hanging over his name. This, however, was cleared away, and the 
American people honored and loved him at the end as a man true and 
faithful, whose only crime was that he believed others to be as honest 
as himself and trusted too honestly and completely. That he might not 
leave his wife in poverty, he worked constantly upon his memoirs 
through the long, dreadful months when he was suffering intense agony 
from the cancer in his throat which eventually caused his death. His 
last days were cheered by the restored confidence of his countr}'men. 
He died, in the consciousness that his book would insure a life-long 
competence to his family and that his name would be preserved with 
those of Washington and Lincoln. His funeral ceremonies were the 
most solemn and impressive ever witnessed in the United States, and, 
on April 8th, the body of the greatest American soldier was interred, with 
great militar>^ pomp, at Riverside Park, near New York City. 

Less than three months later, General George B. McClellan died. 
General McClellan was the first commander of the Army of the Potomac 
and at one time general-in-chief of the army. He was subsequently 
Democratic candidate for President, and later Governor of New York. 

General Winfield S. Hancock, senior Major-General of the United 
States Army, was the next to be called away. In 1880, he was the 
Democratic candidate for President, and was defeated by President 
Garfield. 

Before the close of 1886, another Union commander died. Late in 
December, Major-General John A. Logan, United States Senator from 
Illinois, became ill at his home, Calumet Place, in Washington City. 
He had long been a sufferer from rheumatism, brought on by exposure 
in the early campaigns of the war. Few men did more than General 
Logan to strengthen the Union sentiment in the wavering border States. 
Without military training, he rose rapidly in the army and became the 
great volunteer general of the war. When the rebellion broke out, he 
resigned his seat in Congress and joined the Union army. In 1884, 



CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM. 589 

after being defeated in his candidacy for Vice-President upon the 
Republican ticket, he resumed his duties in the United States Senate. 
Mrs. Logan, a woman of rare intellectual power, was always a wise 
counselor and a noble companion to her illustrious husband, and she will 
always occupy a high place in the regard of the American people. 

On November 25, 1885, Thomas A. Hendricks, the Vice-President, 
was stricken with paralysis and died suddenly at Indianapolis. He was 
buried at the beautiful Crown Hill Cemetery, near that city. 

A little later, two other distinguished Democratic leaders joined 
"the great majority." On February 12, 1886, Horatio Seymour died 
at his home in Utica, New York. He had reached the ripe age of 
seventy-six, and his long life had been one of great activity. In 1868, 
he was the Democratic candidate for President against General Grant. 
Samuel J. Tilden, the most distinguished man in Democratic politics, 
died at his home, called Greystone, near Yonkers, New York, August 4, 
1886. He was born February 14, 1814, and, although in his seventy- 
third year at the time of his death, his intellectual force was unabated 
and his faculties unimpaired. He faithfully served his party for more 
than forty years and held many places of public trust. In 1876, he 
was nominated for President and polled a majority of the popular votes, 
although he failed to receive a majority from the Electoral College. 
After his candidacy for President, Mr. Tilden retired from public life, 
but he continued to be a guiding spirit in his party until his death. 

In April, 1884, Cincinnati was the scene of terrible riots, which 
grew out of distrust of the courts. A murderer was not, according to 
the judgment of the people, dealt with severely enough, and the "laws' 
delays" had become so frequent that the people protested. Their 
protest took the form of a riot, the only results of which were disaster. 
Many were killed by the militia, the court house was burned, many 
thousand dollars' worth of public property was destroyed, the city 
kept under first mob and then martial rule for several days — and all to 
no end, 

August and September of 1886 saw the destruction of the beautiful 
city of Charleston by earthquake. A series of shocks, extending over 
three days, devastated the city. Hundreds of people were killed, and 
those who escaped death were rendered homeless. Like Chicago, 
however, the city rapidly rose out of its ruins. 

The summer of 1888 saw a return of the epidemic of yellow fever in 
the South. Thousands of people died, but the percentage of death was 
not so great among those attacked by the disease as it had formerly 



590 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

been. The relief of the sufferers, both in the Charleston catastrophe 
and in the plague-stricken portions of the South, was prompt and cordial, 
and came from all parts of the United States. The generosity of the 
North upon these occasions did much to dissipate the bitterness between 
the sections. 

In jMarch, 1887, the country sustained a great loss in the death of 
Henry Ward Beecher, the orator, writer and philanthropist. He was 
taken away from a life that was still busy, notwithstanding increasing 
years and constantly widening fields of labor. No man did more than 
he to broaden popular ideas and teach liberality of thought. His work 
as a moral reformer and political instructor was even more prominent 
than as a preacher and theological thinker. Living in a critical period 
of American history, he threw himself into the anti-slavery conflict and 
took first rank on a platform that abounded with orators. No subject 
ever evoked more brilliant and forcible orator>' than the slavery question, 
and no single voice did more than JMr. Beecher' s to arouse the North 
against the encroachments of slave power. Against every compromise 
measure, he protested in language that was most eloquent and indig- 
nant, yet in his indignation he never lost his moral composure and self- 
restraint. By far the most remarkable of his political addresses were 
those delivered by him in Great Britain in 1863. He spoke in 
Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool and London, and each address was 
prepared with special reference to the audience that would hear it. The 
greatest danger to the national cause in our civil war was from the 
intervention of European powers. England was especially feared. To 
these four addresses, more than any other one cause, America is indebted 
for the subsequent sympathy of the common people of England. Mr. 
Beecher took an active part in several presidential campaigns. At the 
time of President Lincoln's second candidacy, he made a series of 
brilliant political speeches, and he exerted a powerful influence in secur- 
ing the election of President Cleveland. Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, 
June 24, 1 813, Henry Ward Beecher' s early education was of the 
severe New England type. He graduated from Amherst, in 1834. 
In 1837, he began his ministry in the small town of Lawrenceburg, 
Indiana. In 1839, he took charge of the Presbyterian Church at 
Indianapolis, and in 1847 accepted a call to the Plymouth Congrega- 
tional Church, of Brooklyn, New York. It was with Plymouth Church 
that his name was henceforth inseparably connected, and during his 
ministry of forty years in its pulpit was a powerful molder of public 
opinion. While laboring with exceptional vigor in completing his 



CIVIL-SERVICE REFORM. 591 

long-delayed "Life of Christ," which he purposed to follow with an 
autobiography, Mr. Beecher was suddenly stricken with apoplexy, and 
after lingering for a few days in an unconscious condition, passed away 
on the morning of March 8th. His death produced wide-spread sorrow 
throughout the American nation. In pulpits representing every school 
of thought, sermons on his career and character were preached, and in 
all sorts of organizations, religious and secular, resolutions to his 
memory were passed. 

One of the most noted pieces of legislation during President Cleve- 
land's administration was the Inter-State Commerce Law. The bill was 
introduced before the Forty-ninth Congress and attracted much atten- 
tion, as it was intended to benefit the public by reducing railway fares 
and freight charges. After a long fight in Congress, during which time 
the bill was several times altered, it finally became a law. The bill 
provided for uniform freight and passenger rates upon all railroads 
throughout the United States. 

President Cleveland had the satisfaction of knowing that four great 
States were admitted to the Union immediately preceding the close of 
his administration. This was an unusual number to be added under 
one President. These States were North and South Dakota, Montana 
and Washington. Dakota was entitled to admission some time before, 
but unworthy political motives prevented it from claiming its right 
place as a State. 

President Cleveland's administration was notable from a social point 
of view. The inauguration of a Democratic President for the first time 
in a quarter of a century naturally created great enthusiasm. The 
ceremonies were impressive, and the event was celebrated with much 
pomp, although the man who assumed the Chief Magistrate's chair was 
one of the most unostentatious of men. 

President Cleveland being unmarried, his youngest sister, Miss 
Rose Elizabeth Cleveland, became the hostess of the White House. A 
woman of progressive ideas, intellectual and thoughtful, she immedi- 
ately made a pleasant impression upon the public. When her father 
died, she was a child eleven years old, and the care of her education 
devolved upon her mother. She was naturally studious, and early gave 
evidence of a strong and original mind. After graduating from a 
prominent seminary she returned to it as a teacher. Later, she became 
principal of the Collegiate Institute, at Lafayette, Indiana. Her health 
becoming impaired, she withdrew from active school work and became 



592 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

a lecturer upon historical subjects in several large seminaries. She 
made her home at Holland Patent, New York, and at the death of her 
mother she continued to live at the old home until she was summoned 
away from her books to do the honors of the White House, where she 
presided with tact and dignity until the marriage of her brother. Miss 
Cleveland had become known as a writer of essays and literary criti- 
cisms, and while residing at the White House she found time to publish 
a book which met with great success. 

In May, 1886, the approaching marriage of the President was 
announced, and the prospect of a wedding at the White House piqued 
the public interest. The bride-elect, Miss Frances Folsom, had been 
in Europe for some time and she was almost unknown in Washington, 
where she was soon to be the center of official social life. She was 
born in Buffalo, New York, and was the only daughter of Oscar Fol- 
som, a prominent lawyer of that city. In 1870, Mr. Folsom became a 
partner of Mr. Cleveland in the practice of law, and a strong friendship 
sprang up between the two lawyers. Death soon severed this friend- 
ship, however, for in July, 1875, Mr. Folsom was thrown from a car- 
riage and killed. Mrs. Folsom immediately gave up her home in Buf- 
falo and removed to Medina, where she devoted herself to the education 
of her daughter, who was later sent to Wells College, Aurora. At 
school and college, the future wife of the highest official in the laud 
was distinguished for her studious habits and bright mind, and she 
graduated from Wells College with high honors. Mr, Cleveland never 
lost sight of his partner's wife and daughter, and, during her school 
days, the young girl received many tokens of his friendly regard. 

On the evening of June 2, 1886, President Cleveland and INIiss 
Frances Folsom were married. The ceremony was performed in the 
Blue Room of the White House, the Reverend Byron Sunderland, D. D., 
officiating, assisted by the Reverend William Cleveland. As the mar- 
riage ceremony was performed, a salute of cannon was fired from the navy 
yard, and all the bells of the city churches rang greetings. On June 
15th, the President and I\Irs. Cleveland held an official reception, and 
the winsome manners of the new lady of the White House won every 
heart. Three days later another reception was held at which not less 
than ten thousand people crowded to meet Mrs. Cleveland, who wore 
her bridal gown and had the Blue Room decorated with flowers, just as 
it had been on the evening of the wedding. 

Although only twenty-two years old and but a short time out of 
school when she became the first lady of the land, Mrs. Cleveland main- 



CIVIL-SERVICR REFORM. 593 

tained the dignity of her exalted position with such tact and discretion 
that no word of criticism was ever passed upon her. Beautiful, gentle 
and kind, she endeared herself to the people. Highly accomplished, 
unaffected in manner and fascinating in address, she was everywhere 
loved and honored. In 1887, the President and Mrs. Cleveland made a 
tour through the country, going as far north as St. Paul, Minnesota, 
and as far south as Montgomery', Alabama. They were welcomed 
ever>'where with great enthusiasm, the cities vicing with one another in 
the preparations for their entertainment. 

In the National Democratic Convention of 1888, President Cleve- 
land was unanimously renominated, but he was defeated in the election 
by the Republican candidate. General Benjamin F. Harrison, of Indiana. 
The reasons for Republican success have been studied with much curi- 
osity, and statesmen have had cause to remember the prophecy of 
General John A. Logan. He said that the election of 1888 would 
result in Republican triumph, for the reason that the children born 
after the close of the War of Secession would become of age and that 
they would be Republicans by heredity. 

After the inauguration of President Harrison, Mr. Cleveland resumed 
the practice of law, associating himself with a prominent firm in New 
York City. As President of the United States, he left an honorable 
record. He was an indefatigable worker, spending many hours every 
day at his desk. His administration was noted for the business-like 
methods that he employed. An ardent advocate of tarifif reform, he 
devoted much space in his annual messages to the subject. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

Fiction— E. Eggleston's "The Hoosier Schoolmaster." 
E. Eggleston's "The Circuit Rider." 

E. Eggleston's "Roxy." 

F. Winthrop's "John Brent." 
J. \V. DeForrest s "Overland." 
Kattlehead's "Arkansas Doctor." 
Bret Harte's "Luck of Roaring Camp." 
Bavard Taylor's "Hannah Thurston." 

Mrs. H. W.'Bucher's "From Dawn to Daylight." 
Huntington's "Alban." 

F. W. Shelton's "The Rector of St. Bardolph's." 
L. M. Childs' "A Romance of the Republic." 

Mark Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County." 
C. E. Whitehead's "Wild Sports in the South." 
Poetry — Lowell's Poems. 

Bayard Taylor's Poems. 
Bret Harte's Poems. 



CHAPTER CVI. 

THE MEMBERS OF THE CABINET AND THE FOREIGN MINISTERS — THE 
CELEBRATION OF THE CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY OF 

WASHINGTON'S INAUGURATION — THE OPEN- "^ 

ING OF OKLAHOMA TERRITORY— 
THE SAMOAN DISASTER. 



HE National Republican Convention, which nomi- 
nated President Harrison, met in the grreat 
Auditorium building at Chicago, June 19, 1888. 
Its proceedings were watched with wide-spread in- 
terest, as there were many candidates for nomina- 
tion, and the delegates representing them were the 
most illustrious men of the nation. After several days of 
deliberation, Benjamin Harrison was unanimously nomi- 
nated on the eighth ballot. During the campaign which 
followed, there was less party bitterness than formerly, 
and the contest was not so personal as in previous times 
of political excitement. The tariff question was the 
principal issue. Protection and free trade were to de- 
cide the vote of the people. During his administration. 
President Cleveland had been outspoken in his free-trade 
principles, and the Democratic platform advocated a reduction of the 
tariff, while the Republicans clung to their belief in the efficiency of 
protection. Among the Republicans there were many veterans who 
had voted for Benjamin Harrison's grandfather. "Tippecanoe" clubs 
were formed and the log cabin appeared upon campaign banners. In 
the political processions many aged men marched and shouted for the 
descendant of their former candidate. 

On March 4, 1889, President Harrison and Vice-President Morton 
were given the oath of office. The city of Washington was gayly 
decorated, and thousands of people assembled to witness the inaugura- 
tion ceremonies. President Harrison delivered his inaus^ural address from 





BENJAMIN HARRISON. 



PRESIDENT HARRISON'S INAUGURATION. 595 

the portico of the Capitol, where Chief Justice Fuller had administered 
the oath of office. The day was unfortunately rainy and unpleasant; 
but the crowd, which was one of the largest ever gathered in Washing- 
ton, listened with respectful attention. The inaugural address of 
President Harrison was a modest, thoughtful, well- written and dignified 
document. It was characterized by a patriotic sentiment of Unionism. 
It was of moderate length, andafiforded ample opportunity to touch upon 
the questions of conspicuous national importance. The introduction of 
the message was suggested naturally by the political sentiments asso- 
ciated with the centennial of the nation's existence, for it was just one 
hundred years after the framing of the Constitution of the United 
States. The protective system was touched upon. President Harrison 
indorsed protection, and looked hopefully to its continuance. In the 
course of the address, the subject of monopolies was mentioned. 
President Harrison uttered a warning against corporations violating the 
rights of the people. He suggested an amendment to the naturaliza- 
tion laws — an amendment that would insure a closer scrutiny of the 
characters of those who come here, and which would exclude those who 
are likely to become a burden upon public charity. He outlined a 
firm and dignified policy. 

A great ball, at which twelve thousand people were present, was given 
in the immense Pension building on the evening of the inauguration day. 
The preparations for the ball were elaborate, and the presidential party 
met with an enthusiastic welcome 

Benjamin Harrison, the twenty-third President of the United States, 
was born at North Bend, Hamilton county, Ohio, August 20, 1833. 
He studied at home until 1841, when he was sent to Farmer's College, 
near Cincinnati. His boyhood was not unlike that of other boys reared 
upon a farm, and was quite uneventful. At fifteen, he entered Miami 
University, at Oxford, Ohio, and was graduated from that institution, 
three years later. While at college, he became engaged to Miss Caroline 
W. Scott, a daughter of Dr. John Scott, who was principal of an 
academy for young ladies. After leaving college, he immediately 
studied law, and before he had quite finished his legal course he was 
married, on the 25th of October, 1853. ^^ March, 1854, he settled in 
Indianapolis, and there began a brave struggle with the world. Mr. 
Harrison was not burdened with riches, and he and his young wife 
began life in the simplest manner. At first, business was slow in coming, 
and when appointed crier of the Federal Court, the young lawyer gladly 
accepted the humble office with its slight renumeration of two dollars 



596 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

and a half a day. In i860, he was a candidate before the Republican 
convention for Reporter of the Supreme Court of the State, and 
obtained the office to which he was afterward repeatedly re-elected. 

When the rumors of civil war reached him, Mr. Harrison was 
anxious to be one of the first volunteers. Remembering his wife and 
young children, he hesitated. President Lincoln having issued a procla- 
mation calling for troops, the Governor of Indiana found difficulty in 
filling the quota due from his State. The grandson of General William 
Henry Harrison could hesitate no longer. He immediately raised a 
regiment. While it was drilling, he was commissioned second lieuten- 
ant. When the regiment joined the anny, its second lieutenant became 
the colonel of the Seventieth Regiment of Indiana Volunteers. Colonel 
Harrison proved to be a brave soldier, and when he was discharged from 
the army in June, 1865, he had risen to the rank of brigadier-general. 
He was the hero of Peach Tree Creek, and was brevetted for his gallant 
acts upon the field. 

In 1876 many influential Republicans in the State insisted that Gen- 
eral Harrison should allow his name to be placed on the ticket for 
Governor. He declined the honor, but was nevertheless nominated. 
The result of the election was unfavorable to him, although he ran 
ahead of his ticket and was defeated by a small majority. Two years 
later he was called upon to preside over the State Convention, and in 
1880 he was chairman of the Indiana delegation at the National Con- 
vention. In 1884, he again represented his State at the National 
Convention which met in Chicago. 

He was elected to the United States Senate in 1880, and served 
until 1886, when he resumed the practice of law in Indianapolis. As 
a lawyer, General Harrison had many natural gifts. He was quick of 
apprehension and broad of judgment. He was naturally analytical and 
logical, a patient student and a deep thinker. In private life, he was 
much esteemed by all who knew him. Modest and unassuming in 
manner, he still showed marked individuality and strong character. As 
a genial friend, a good citizen and a brilliant lawyer, he was highly 
honored in his native State, and his record in the United States Senate 
gave him a national reputation for unswerving loyalty to the interests 
of the people whom he represented. 

Levi P. Morton, the Vice-President, was bom at Sherman, Ver- 
mont, May 10, 1824. When very young he entered mercantile life, 
and soon became a partner in the Boston firm with which he was 
engaged. He removed to New York, four years later, continuing as 



PRESIDENT HARRISON'S INAUGURATION. 597 

a merchant until 1863, when he founded the banking house of Morton, 
Bliss & Co. At the same time he established a branch in London 
under the firm name of Morton, Rose & Co. , and this firm acted as the 
financial agents of the United States Government from 1873 to 1884. 
In 1878, Mr. Morton was appointed Honorary Commissioner to the 
Paris Exposition, and the same year was elected to Congress, where he 
served for two terms. President Garfield tendered him the office of 
Secretary of the Navy, which he declined, preferring to acccept the 
appointment of Minister to France. After the expiration of his term 
as foreign minister, Mr. Morton held no public ofiice until elected Vice- 
President of the United States. 

On March 5th, the day after the inauguration. President Harrison 
sent the names of his Cabinet to the Senate for confirmation. They 
were: For Secretary of State, James G. Blaine, of Maine; Secretary 
of the Treasury, William Windom, of Minnesota; Secretary of War, 
Redfield Proctor, of Vermont; Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin F. Tracy, 
of New York; Secretary of the Interior, John W. Noble, of Missouri; 
Secretary of Agriculture, Jeremiah Rusk, of Wisconsin; Postmaster- 
General, John Wanamaker, of Pennsylvania; Attorney-General, William 
Henry Harrison Miller, of Indiana. 

The nominees were promptly confirmed by the Senate, as there could 
be no objection to any of them on the ground of incompetency or per- 
sonal unfitness. The new Cabinet was regarded by the country 
most favorably. While it contained several men who had no record in 
public life, it had no member who had not had large experience of 
either a political or business nature. 

James Gillespie Blaine, Secretary of State, was born January 31, 
1830, in Washington County, Pennsylvania. In 1847 ^^ graduated at 
Washington College. He taught school for two years at Georgetown, 
Kentucky, in the meantime studying law. He was admitted to the bar 
in Pennsylvania, but never practiced. In 1853 he located in Maine, 
and assumed the editorship and control of the Keiuiebec Jo2Lr7iaL Upon 
the organization of the Republican party, he took an active part in 
politics, and soon became the acknowledged leader of the Republican 
party in his State. In 1858, he was elected to the legislature, where he 
served four years, the last two as Speaker of the House. In 1862, he was 
elected to Congress, and at once assumed the lead in national politics. 
In 1869, he was chosen Speaker of the House, which office he held until 
the Democrats assumed control of Congress in 1876. In the same year, he 
was one of the principal candidates for the presidential nomination, but 



598 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

was beaten, his opponents uniting on Governor Hayes, of Ohio. In 
July, 1876, he was ajipointed Senator from IMaine by the Governor of 
the State. In 1880, he was again a prominent candidate for the presi- 
dential nomination, but General Garfield was finally selected as a com- 
promise candidate. In 1884, he was nominated for the presidency, but 
was defeated by President Cleveland. No man in the countr}' ever had 
more loyal political adherents than James G. Blaine, and in the conven- 
tion of 1888 his name was again mentioned for nomination. Several 
delegations at first refused to consider any other name but his. ]\Ir. 
Blaine was traveling in Europe at the time, and when he became aware 
of the indecision of the convention he had his name withdrawn, and 
President Harrison was nominated. 

William Windom, Secretary of the Treasur>', was born in Ohio, in 
1827. -^^ practiced law for several years in his native State, and in 
1855 he removed to Minnesota. During the ten years from 1858 to 
1868, he was a member of the House of Representatives at Washing- 
ton. He was appointed United States Senator to fill a vacancy in 
1870, and the following year was elected for a full term. In 1876, he 
was re-elected, and was Senator when President Garfield appointed him 
Secretary of the Treasury in 1881. He served but a short time, when 
President Garfield was killed. In 1883, he was a candidate for re-elec- 
tion to the Senate, but was defeated. 

Redfield Proctor, of Vermont, Secretary of War, was born in 1831. 
In early life he began the study of law, but closed his books to go to 
the war. His first service was as quartermaster of the Third Regiment 
of Vermont. He subsequently was made major of the F'ifth Vennont, 
and finally colonel of the Fifteenth. His health became impaired, and 
after serving at Gettysburg, where his regiment acted as train guard, 
he returned home and engaged in farming. He turned his attention to 
politics in a small way, serving several times in the State Legislature. 
In 1878, he was nominated for Governor and elected. From the time 
of his retirement from that office, he maintained an active interest in 
political affairs, and has been regarded as one of the party leaders of 
the State. 

John W. Noble, Secretary of the Interior, was born at Lancaster, 
Ohio, in 1830. His father, John Noble, was a colonel of the United 
States army in the W^ar of 181 2. Secretary Noble was sent to college 
at Oxford, Ohio, and there formed the acquaintance of President Har- 
rison, who was a student at the same time. PVom Oxford he was sent 
to Yale, where he graduated with high honors; he afterwards studied 



PRESIDENT HARRISON'S INAUGURATION. 599 

law and practiced for two years. In 1856, he removed to St. Louis. 
He opened a law office there, but the following year removed to Keokuk, 
Iowa, where he practiced law until the war broke out. He enlisted in 
the Third Iowa Cavalry, and was advanced step by step to the rank of 
major. He then went on staff duty, but in a short time returned to 
his regiment in the field. He remained in active duty until the close 
of the war. After the war, Major Noble opened a law office in St. 
Louis. Soon after beginning the practice of law, he was appointed 
United States District Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri. 
In 1870 he resigned that office and practiced law in St. Louis until his 
appointment as Secretary of the Interior. 

Benjamin Franklin Tracy, Secretary of the Navy, was born in 
Tioga county, New York. His early life was passed on a farm. He 
studied law, and in 1851 was admitted to the bar. Three years later 
he became District Attorney of Tioga county. He was afterwards 
elected to the New York Assembly. In 1862, Governor Morgan re- 
quested Mr. Tracy to raise a regiment for the counties of Broome, 
Tompkins and Tioga. He raised two regiments and was given com- 
mand of one. When he resigned at the close of the war, he had 
attained the rank of brigadier-general. In 1866, he received the 
appointment of United States District Attorney for the Eastern District 
of New York, and held the position until 1873, when he resigned. 

John Wanamaker, the Postmaster-General, was born in Philadel- 
phia, July II, 1837. His father was of German parentage and his 
mother a descendant of the Huguenots. His parents were poor, and at 
the age of fourteen he went to work in a clothing store, where he earned 
a dollar and a half a week. In five years he was head salesman of the 
house. In 1 861, he went into partnership with his brother-in-law, 
Nathan Brown, and soon built up an enormous business. He has 
always been prominent in religious affairs. His history is commercial, 
not political. He took no active part in politics previous to the recent 
campaign. He was a member of the Centennial Commission, and was 
chiefly instrumental in raising the first million dollars for the project. 
He was repeatedly solicited to run for Congress and Mayor of Phila- 
delphia, but always refused. 

William Henry Harrison Miller, the Attorney-General, was a former 
law partner of President Harrison. He was born in Oneida county, 
New York. His father was a Whig, and an ardent admirer of Presi- 
dent Harrison's grandfather. After being graduated from Hamilton 
College, New York, Mr. Miller studied law under the instruction of 



600 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Judge Waite, of Toledo, Ohio, afterwards Chief Justice of the Supreme 
Court. He began the practice of law in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where 
he remained eight years. In 1874 he received an offer of partnership 
■with General Harrison, and accepted it. 

Jeremiah M. Rusk, Secretary of Agriculture, was born in Morgan 
county, Ohio, in 1830. He spent the early years of his youth in the 
countr}-, and in 1852 settled on a farm in Wisconsin. In 1861, he was 
elected to the State Legislature. In 1862 he entered the army. He 
had been prominent in securing the enlistment of troops, and as a con- 
sequence was elected major of the Twenty-fifth Wisconsin Regiment. 
He served during the Indian outbreak in Minnesota, and also during the 
siege and capture of Vicksburg. He was with General Sherman on 
the famous march to the sea, being brevetted brigadier-general for 
gallantry at the battle of Talkehatchie. In 1865 he was elected to the 
office of Bank Comptroller, and held that position until the office was 
abolished by an amendment to the constitution. He was elected to 
Congress in 1870, 1872 and 1874. At the close of his last term, he 
retired to his farm until 1888, when he was elected Governor of the 
State of Wisconsin. The Department of Agriculture was formerly 
under the supervision of the Secretar}' of the Interior, and Jeremiah 
Rusk was the first Secretary appointed to the new portfolio. 

The members of the Cabinet who had been most conspicuous in 
the public offices they had held were Secretaries Blaine, Windom and 
Rusk. 

In his appointment of United States representatives to foreign 
countries. President Harrison showed great sagacity. The sons of two 
former presidents were honored. 

On March 27th, President Harrison sent to the Senate the name of 
Robert T. Lincoln, of Illinois, son of President Abraham Lincoln, to 
be Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiar}- of the United 
States to Great Britain, and the appointment was immediately con- 
firmed. Robert Lincoln was born in Springfield, August i, 1843. -^^ 
was the eldest son of President Lincoln. About a year after his birth, 
his parents moved to Springfield, which continued to be their home 
until Abraham Lincoln went to Washington as President. Robert 
Lincoln received his elementary education at the public schools and 
State University. He was prepared for an extended college course in 
Phillips Exeter Academy, and was graduated at Harvard in 1864. He 
then entered the Harvard Law School, and after a short time applied for 
admission to the army, and was regularly commissioned as a captain. 



INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT HARRISON. 6oi 

He served with honor through several engagements, and witnessed Lee's 
surrender at Appomattox. At the close of the war he took up the study 
of law, was admitted to the Chicago bar, and soon became very- 
successful in the practice of his profession. In 1881, President Garfield 
chose him to be his Secnetary of War. Sixteen years before Robert 
Lincoln had reached Washington from the battle field in time to stand 
by the death-bed of his father, assassinated while President, and he had 
the sad experience of being in Washington at the time of the shooting 
of President Garfield, a few months after his inauguration. Upon 
the accession of Vice-President Arthur to the presidential chair, Mr. 
Lincoln was the only member of the former Cabinet requested to 
retain his portfolio. He remained Secretary of War until the close of the 
administration. 

Frederick D. Grant was sent as Minister to Austria-Hungary. He 
was the oldest son of General Grant, and was born in 1850. He 
accompanied his father during the war, and was in five battles before he 
was thirteen years old. He entered the National Military Academy at 
West Point in 1867, and was graduated from that institution in 187 1. 
He served as lieutenant-colonel upon General Sheridan's staflf. In 
1876, Colonel Grant resigned from the army. He accompanied his 
father upon his trip around the world and assisted in the preparation of 
the "Memoirs." 

Whitelaw Reid, of New York, was appointed Minister to France. 
He was born in Xenia, Ohio, in 1837. When nineteen years old he 
was graduated from Miami University. He taught school a year, and 
in 1857, when only twenty years old, bought the Xenia News. Two 
years later he was a correspondent at Columbus for several papers, and 
became famous as a war correspondent for the Cincinnati Gazette in 
1861 and 1862, for which paper he wrote over the signature of "Agate. " 
Afterward he became associate editor of the Gazette^ then Librarian of 
the House of Representatives, and in 1865 took charge of theiV<?z£/ York 
Tribune Bureau in Washington. In 1870, Mr. Reid became attached 
to the New York Tribune, and when Horace Greeley was nominated 
for the presidency he became managing editor. He remained in that 
position until the time of his appointment. He has edited several 
works, "After the War," "The Southern Tour" and "Ohio in the 
War." 

Allen Thorndike Rice, of New York, was sent as Minister to St. 
Petersburg. Though only thirty-six years old at the time, he had a 
wide reputation as a writer and editor. He was born in Boston. At 



6o2 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

the age of nine, he was taken abroad, and for five years lived in 
Europe. In 1867 he returned to the United States and remained until 
1 87 1, when he went to England and was graduated at Oxford in 1875. 
On his return to this country- he entered the Columbia Law School. In 
1876 he bought the North American Review and became its editor. He 
is noted as having organized, in 1879, and subsequently directed, an 
expedition which was despatched under the joint auspices of the United 
States and France to systematically investigate the remains of ancient 
civilization in Central America and New Mexico. In 1884 he bought 
a controlling interest in the Le Matin^ one of the leading papers of 
Paris, which he successfully managed. He always took an active 
interest in politics, and in 1886 received the Republican nomination for 
Congress, but was defeated. He edited reminiscences of Abraham 
Lincoln and contributed valuable material to literature concerning the 
ancient cities of the New World. 

John A. Enander, of Illinois, was appointed Minister and Council- 
lor-General of the United States to Denmark. He was born in Sweden, 
and was the son of a fanner. In 1 869, he came to America, entering 
the College of Augustana. He soon became editor of a Swedish news- 
paper printed in Chicago, and afterwards assumed the charge of several 
Scandinavian periodicals. He became an American in all the word 
implies, a broad and liberal-minded citizen, exercising a good influence 
upon all his countrymen in the United States. 

Albert G. Porter was made Minister to Italy. He was bom in 
Lawrenceville, Indiana. During the war he served in Congress for 
three terms. He declined re-election, and devoted himself to the prac- 
tice of law in Indianapolis. In 1880 he was nominated for Governor 
of Indiana, and carried the State by a large majority. Both President 
Garfield and Arthur offered him places in their Cabinets, but he pre- 
ferred to remain in the State office to which he had been elected. 

Thomas W. Palmer, of Michigan, was sent as Minister to Spain. 
He was born in Detroit, and was educated at the University of Michi- 
gan. He was elected to the United States Senate and served with 
great credit. 

John D. Washburn, of Massachusetts, was appointed to represent 
the United States in Switzerland. He was prominent in Massachusetts 
politics, and served in both houses of the State Legislature. 

John F. Swift, of California, was made Minister to Japan. As a 
learned man and successful author, he was favorably known. Having 
been a great traveler, he was well versed in diplomatic matters. In 



PRESIDENT HARRISON'S INAUGURATION. 603 

1886 he was the Republican candidate for Governor of California. He 
framed the famous Anti-Chinese Bill, which, when presented to the 
Senate, produced a protracted discussion. 

One of the first events of President Harrison's Administration was 
the opening of the Oklahoma Territory to settlers. The Oklahoma 
Territory was part of the great Indian reservation in the Indian Ter- 
ritory. The lands could only be opened by the acceptance and consent 
of the Indians, and this acceptance and consent had to be accompanied 
by satisfactory proof that it had been obtained freely and in the man- 
ner and form required by the twelfth article of the treaty of 1876. 

President Harrison having approved the deed by which the Indians 
ceded to the United States all their right and title to the land held by 
them in the Oklahoma tract, there was immediately a great stampede 
of settlers toward the new Territory'. The cession of land made by the 
Creek and Seminole Indians embraced several million acres, between 
the Indian river on the south and the Cherokee outlet on the north. 
One hundred thousand dollars was appropriated by the Government 
towards surveying this land to be opened for settlement. On March 
23d, the President issued a proclamation declaring the land open to 
settlers at noon on the 2 2d of April. During the month following 
this proclamation there was a great rush westward, and the excitement 
was intense. 

For ten years there had been an effort on the part of a certain num-' 
ber of settlers to have the territory opened. In 1879, one Captain 
Payne attempted to take possession of some land on the reservation. 
He met with strong opposition from the Government. Had Payne's 
party been allowed to peaceably settle on the lands which he believed 
to be public property, it is doubtful whether there would have been any 
concerted movement toward Oklahoma. The opposition awakened wide- 
spread interest in the countr}-, and the history of the ' 'Oklahoma boomers' ' 
lent a sort of fascinating glamour to the country. Captain Payne, the 
head of the original party, had been an army scout and guide. He made 
frequent excursions in the Indian country through the years imme- 
diately following the close of the war, and so became thoroughly 
acquainted with it. Recognizing this as public land under the treaty 
of 1866, he, in 1879, organized a small colony for the purpose of effect- 
ing a settlement. In December, 1880, the colonists were followed by 
United States troops. Payne was arrested and the colonies were dis- 
banded. Payne was tried and put under bonds not to enter the 
territory; but he was not discouraged. He and his colonists, the "Okla- 



6o4 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

homa boomers," subsequently made four well-organized expeditions 
into the territory, laid out towns, located farms, built houses and plowed 
fields. Each time Payne was turned out by the military and all his 
improvements destroyed. His last expedition was made in 1884, in 
which year he died. In the fall of 1884, the United States Court at 
Topeka had decided that the lands were public property, and at the time 
of his death Payne had another party organized. A determined pioneer 
became the leader, and started with four hundred and fifty men, but they 
were expelled. After this, more conservative settlers petitioned Con- 
gress, and through their intercessions the matter was formally considered. 
The Goverment was just in the position that it took in protecting the 
rights of the Indians, for neither the boomers nor the horde of specula- 
tors, who defied military rule, had any authority for pressing their 
claims. 

The Oklahoma tract opened for settlement was but a very small part 
of what is known as the Oklahoma region. It contains about as much 
territory as Rhode Island and Delaware combined, and comprises about 
thirteen thousand quarter sections of homestead claims. 

On the evening before the day set for the entrance into the Okla- 
homa Territor}', it is estimated that at least fifty thousand people were 
anxiously waiting on the borders of the long-coveted region. Accord- 
ing to law, the land could be pre-empted by the first to stake claims, 
and there was no precedence given to the original settlers who had 
fought for permission to occupy the country. On the long looked for 
2 2d of April the scenes in the Oklahoma country rivaled anything in 
the previous history of the United States. The settlers entered in a 
frenzy of excitement. Wagons and all other incumbrances were 
abandoned, and the pioneers made all possible haste to procure claims. 
In a single day every available piece of farming land was pre-empted, 
and thousands of the settlers were unable to obtain any property. 
Within twenty-four hours several towns sprang up, city officers were 
elected, and the territory that had been a wilderness on the evening of 
April 2ist was a well-populated country before another nightfall. Much 
suffering was experienced by the settlers, many of whom had spent all 
their money in reaching the much talked of country. Food and water 
failed, and hundreds of disappointed pioneers were glad to return to 
their former homes. 

On March 15 and 16, 1889, the United States lost three men-of-war 
in a hurricane. The vessels were lying in the harbor of Apia, in 
Samoan waters. The Vandalia and Trenton were totally destroyed and 



PRESIDENT HARRISON'S INAUGURATION. 605 

the Nipsic was driven ashore in a badly-damaged condition. A number 
of lives were lost. 

The celebration of the centennial anniversary of George Washing- 
ton's inauguration is one of the most important events in the recent 
history of the United States. The day (April 30, 1889) was made a 
legal holiday and was enthusiastically observed throughout the land. 
In every city commemorative exercises were held. Patriotic addresses 
were delivered in the churches and schools, and men, women and chil- 
dren took equal interest in the great demonstration. The event which 
was thus recalled by a united and rejoicing people was of double 
importance. While the memory of the man, George Washington, was 
thus honored, the installation of the first President as the head of a 
new Government was but the outward sign of that more "perfect 
Union" which the Constitution had been framed to establish. The day 
was really the one hundredth birthday of a great and prosperous nation. 
The annals of the past were full of wonderful occurrences, and the 
people who stood on the dividing line between the first and second 
centuries of constitutional government had cause for deepest thankful- 
ness. Behind them lay many wars and dangers out of which the 
nation had issued in peace and safety. Before them stretched what 
seemed an age of rapid development and undisturbed prosperity. 

Although the centennial anniversary of Washington's inauguration 
was a day universally celebrated East, West, North and South, the 
principal demonstrations took place in New York City, which was the 
seat of the Government in 1789. In arranging the ceremonies, in 
which the Government officials took part, it was the desire to recall as 
many incidents and imitate as many festivities of the past as was pos- 
sible under the altered condition of the times. On the night of April 
28, 1889, President Harrison and a large party left Washington for 
New York City, traveling the same route as that traversed by Washing- 
ton a century before. When Washington made his memorable journey 
he started on April 16, driving in his coach, which was an imposing if 
not a rapid vehicle. His progress was delayed by repeated ovations at 
every point along the line. 

At Philadelphia, twenty thousand people — an immense crowd for 
the time — greeted him, and a gorgeous banquet was given in his honor 
at the City Tavern. When he reached the bridge at Trenton, he passed 
under a triumphal arch, and young girls, dressed in white and crowned 
with garlands, strewed his way with flowers. President Harrison and 
party did not stop until Elizabeth, New Jersey, was reached. It was at 



6o6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

this little city that Washington was entertained by Elias Boudinot, a 
member of the Continental Congress. The Governor of the State 
received President Harrison, and, after a formal "breakfast," a pictur- 
esque procession was reviewed. One of the unique features of the pro- 
cession was a company of men, the descendants of the farmers who had 
met Washington at Wheatsheaf. They were dressed in Continental 
costume and carried old-time farming implements. On the road 
between Elizabeth and Klizabethport there was a large arch, upon which 
were stationed young girls dressed to represent the States of the Union, 
After the fashion of the Trenton women in the time of Washington, 
they showered flowers upon the passing President. At Elizabethport, 
President Harrison was taken aboard a fine ship called the Dispatch. 
From Elizabethport, Washington had embarked in a splendid red-cano- 
pied barge, specially built for the purpose; and, surrounded by small 
boats full of men and women singing choruses of welcome, he had 
slowly finished his journey to New York City. The spectacle that met 
the eye of President Harrison as the Dispatch steamed toward New 
York Bay was one that surpassed anything that was ever imagined by 
men of a past generation. Four hundred vessels were drawn up in line. 
Each was bright with bunting, the decorations being elaborate and 
effective. The naval division formed a single column. The Chicago 
carried the flag of the Secretary of the Navy, and the admiral's flag was 
borne by the Boston. The other ships belonging to the navy were the 
Atlanta^ Yorktown^ Juniata^ Essex^ B^^ooklyn^ Jamestown and the old 
Kearsargc. The revenue and yacht divisions formed a part of the 
naval parade that was exceedingly brilliant. When the Dispatch 
reached the Chicago^ the entire fleet of steamers blew whistles and the 
sound was deafening. The booming of cannon and music from a hun- 
dred bands added to the noise, while on land and shore thousands of 
people cheered the approaching President. 

As the Dispatch anchored opposite Wall street ferry, a barge, 
manned by a crew belonging to the same society as the one which had 
rowed Washington ashore, met President Harrison. The old banner of 
the Marine Society, which had been carried before Washington, floated 
from the boat, and its faded and yellow silk was a silent witness to the 
flight of time. As the President landed on the wharf, the chimes of 
old Trinity Church played the "Doxology." 

New York City was magnificently decorated for the gala days of the 
celebration. The streets were lined and festooned with the national 
colors, and arches were erected across the principal streets. After the 



PRESIDENT HARRISON'S INAUGURATION. 607 

great naval parade, the President held a public reception, at the begin- 
ning of which he received the greetings of several hundred school 
children, who carried baskets of flowers and scattered them in the path- 
way of the presidential party. In the evening, a grand centennial ball 
was given at the Metropolitan Opera House. Its splendor was unparal- 
leled by any similar entertainment that had ever taken place in the 
United States. The great opera house was transformed into a blooming 
garden. Roses and orchids were used by the thousands, and rare flowers 
were woven into many odd designs. More than six thousand people 
were present at this ball. 

On the morning of the 30th of April, the great day of the cele- 
bration, President Harrison attended services at St. Paul's Church, in 
Broadway. He sat in the same pew that Washington had occupied on 
the morning of his inauguration. In the congregation, on this occasion, 
there was a notable gathering of the most distinguished men of the 
nation, and the day added historic interest to the church already 
hallowed by many sacred memories of the past. From St. Paul's 
Church, the President was escorted to the Sub-Treasury building, where 
the literary exercises of the day were held. From a platform prepared 
for the speakers, the addresses were made. The exercises of the day 
opened with the appropriate words: 

"Fellow-citizens: One hundred years ago, on this spot, George 
Washington, as first President of the United States, took his oath of 
office upon the Holy Bible. That sacred volume is here to-day, silently 
attesting the basis upon which our nation was constructed and the 
dependence of our people upon Almighty God. In the words, then, 
of one of the founders of the Government, with hearts overflowing with 
gratitude to our Sovereign Benefactor for granting to us existence, for 
continuing it to the present period, and for accumulating on us bless- 
ings spiritual and temporal through life, may we with fervor beseech 
Him so to continue them as best to promote His glory and our welfare." 

A poem, written for the occasion by John G. Whittier, the venerable 
poet, was one of the important features of the literary programme. The 
oration of the day was delivered by Mr. Chauncey M. Depew, and was 
an eloquent effort. 

After the literary exercises, there was a military parade that was one 
of the most memorable pageants of recent times. It was many miles 
in length, and was more than six hours in passing the reviewing stand. 

The centennial celebration in New York City closed with a banquet 
at the ]\Ietropolitan Opera House. The scene was scarcely less brilliant 



6o8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

than on the preceding night of the ball. Eight hundred guests were 
present. The speakers of the evening were President Harrison, 
ex-President Cleveland, ex-President Hayes, Chief Justice Fuller, 
General Sherman, James Russell Lowell, Charles W. Eliot, president of 
Harvard College, and Fitzhugh Lee, Governor of Virginia. 



CHAPTER CVII. 



THE LITERATURE OF THE LAST THIRTY YEARS. 



Itt. 




T may be well at this point to take up the thread 
of history which concerns national literature. 
Among the novelists who preceded the present 
school, and who are now almost forgotten, are 
Robert Montgomery Bird, John Neal, William 
Mare (an historical novelist), Sylvester Judd, 
William Gilmore Simms (a leading Southern writer), 
and John Esten Cooke, also a delineator of Southern 
life. Charles F. Briggs wrote several novels of New 
England life, partly humorous in their character; 
Richard B. Kimball chose New York City for his field of 
fiction; John P. Kennedy preferred to portray old-times 
society, and Hermon Nelaille chose the sea as the 
^ surrounding for his characters. 
The novel which has had the greatest popular success of any 
American book is Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin." As 
a literary success, it was remarkable, and as a moral factor, it has 
doubtless had more direct and practical influence upon the people than 
any book ever written. It was published in 1852, and won more con- 
verts to the anti-slavery cause than all the sermons preached or laws en- 
acted. Strongly dramatic and deeply fascinating in plot, "Uncle Tom's 
Cabin" still retains its popularity, although the great abolition cause 
that it championed has long since triumphed. Every new edition finds 
ready sale, and no book published in America has been so universally 
read. 

"The Wide, Wide World," of the sisters Susan and Anna Warner, 
published in 1850, has been one of the very successful American books. 
Catherine Sedgwick, the author of "Hope Leslie;" Marion Cole Harris, 
who wrote "Rutledge," and Maria S. Cummins, the author of "The 



6lO THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Lamplighter," are among the first women who did graceful and credit- 
able work in America. "Grace Greenwood" (Sarah J. Lippencott) and 
Fanny Fern" (]\Ir.s. James Parton) were the first to introduce the style 
of light and pleasant magazine sketching, which has since become so 
popular. 

Of the American essayists, Ralph Waldo Emerson is the most 
distinguished. He was born in Boston in 1802, the descendant of 
eight generations of clergymen. Born with a religious habit of thought, 
he still imbibed the healthy radicalism of the age, and became a 
philosopher whose purity and breadth of thought made him the rival 
of any thinker, ancient or modern. He w^as one of the founders of the 
Transcendental movement, in which IVIargaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, 
Thoreau and the younger Channing were also associated. Henry D. 
Thoreau was a recluse, who lived in Concord, on the shores of Walden 
Pond. He kept apart from men, and devoted his life to the study of 
nature. Amos Bronson Alcott was a representative Transcendentalist, 
and the only man in this country who cultivated the art of imparting 
knowledge by "Conversations." These he held for many years in 
various parts of the United States. George William Curtis is the 
writer of a number of graceful essays. George Ticknor is the author 
of an elaborate history of Spanish literature. Edwin P. Whipple is 
considered the most faithful of American critics. George S. Hillard 
and Charles E. Norton are known for their artistic books of Italian 
travel. One of the American classics of travel, "Two Years Before the 
Mast," is from the pen of Richard H. Dana, Jr. Thomas Starr King has 
devoted himself largely to descriptions of the White Mountains. Mrs. 
Lydia Maria Child has written two books devoted to the science of 
religion, and she was the first woman to contribute to the anti-slavery 
literature of the country. Donald G. INIitchell wrote "Dream-Life" 
and the "Reveries of a Bachelor," two very delightful books. F. S. 
Cozzens devoted his pen to descriptions of Nova Scotia. Henry W. 
Herbert made field sports the subject of his interesting books. Henry 
and William Reed wrote literary and historical criticisms. Joseph C. 
Neal and George H. Derby wrote humorous books. Dr. Edward 
Robinson produced a work on Biblical research, which is considered a 
standard in all countries. Richard Grant White is known for his 
excellent critical works and his essays on language. He, as well as 
Horace Howard P^urness, have edited editions of Shakspere in this 
country. 

Dr. J. G. Holland has been popular as an essayist, a novelist and a 



OF THE MAKING OF GOOD BOOKS, ETC. 6ll 

poet. His name is connected with the founding of Scribner' s Maga- 
zine^ of which he was the editor-in-chief until his death, in 1881. To 
him the mass of American readers are deeply indebted for the great 
impetus that he gave to periodical literature. "Bitter Sweet" and 
MKathrina," two beautiful poems, by Dr. Holland, achieved great suc- 
cess. With the exception of Longfellow's "Hiawatha," "Kathrina" 
has had a larger sale than any other American poem. Henry T. 
Tuckerman wrote many pleasant things, in somewhat the same style as. 
Dr. Holland. 

The writers on law and medicine in this country have been very 
numerous. The "Commentaries on American Law," by James Kent, 
and the "International Law," of Henry Wheaton, deserve special men- 
tion. 

The dictionaries of Noah Webster and Joseph E. Worcester; the 
philological works of William D. Whitney, George P. Marsh, Francis 
J. Child, S. S. Halderman, E. A. Sophocles, F. A. March and James 
Hadley; the ethnological works of H. R. Schoolcraft, C. C. Jones Jr., 
and H. H. Bancroft, are valuable contributions to our literature. H. 
H. Bancroft is also known as the most careful and painstaking historian 
of the great Western coast, Alaska and the Northwestern States. 

Asa Gray and John Torrey have written books on botany. Nathaniel 
Bowditch, Elias Loomis, Benjamin Pierce, Simon Newcomb and 
Richard Proctor are known for their mathematical and astronomical 
publications. 

Books on birds have been written by J. J. Audubon, Elliot Coues 
and T. M. Brewer. John Burrows has written lovingly of birds and 
many other subjects of nature, in a manner so charming as to acquaint 
the least scientific with the secrets of American woods and fields. 

Louis Agassiz, Edward Hitchcock, and James D. Dana are among 
those who have written geological treatises. Henry C. Carey, and Dr. 
Theodore D. Wookey have written well on political economy and inter- 
national law, but the recent discussions concerning the tariff have 
brought into existence a large number of writers on kindred subjects. 
Arnold Guyot is noted for his physical geographies. W. J. Hardee, 
Winfield Scott, W. H. Halleck and George B. McClellan have pub- 
lished books on militar}- science. 

Since the War of Secession, Grant and Logan have published large 
histories concerning that period. The last history of the Rebellion is by 
Rossiter Johnson. Horace Greeley and Alexander H. Stephens are the 
fullest in their account of the anti-slavery contest, which preceded and 



6l2 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

attended the war. Dr. John W. Draper has attempted to give an 
unpartisan record of the politics of the time. Vice-President Wilson's 
"Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America" is a valuable history. 
General Sherman has written his reminiscences of the war. 

Our later poets have shown, in some cases, eccentricities which have 
won a somewhat undeserved praise for them in England, and not a little 
furious criticism in America. Whitman and Miller are two of our most 
erratic poets. Joaquin Miller is known for his "Songs of the Sierras," 
and other poems of Western life. Walt Whitman deals neither in 
rhyme nor metre, but writes democratic rhapsodies for the people. 

Bayard Taylor is not known alone as a poet, though he wrote 
impassioned and glowing verses. His numerous books of travel are 
charming and valuable, and his novels present accurate pictures of 
American life. He also made a valuable translation of both parts of 
"Faust." 

Richard Henry Stoddard is the author of nine volumes of short 
poems, highly finished in style and full of true feeling. He is, perhaps, 
the most scholarly of our living poets. In the face of sorrow and bitter- 
ness, he has cherished his faith in the highest ideal of poetic art, giving 
to the world many beautiful lyrics, some of which have been scattered 
far and wide over the country. His poem on the death of Thackeray is 
to be highly praised. "The King's Bell," and "Wratislaw" prove 
him to be a narrative poet of high rank. One of his most popular 
poems is "A Wedding Under the Directory." 

John Godfrey Saxe has occupied a position in American literature 
somewhat similar to that of Hood in English literature. The English 
language is a thing with him to be used as a plaything, and his poems 
are deliciously witty and airy. 

John Townsend Trowbridge is an excellent writer of juvenile stories. 
Though his novels have interest, he is remembered most frequently for 
his stories for boys. Another popular writer of juvenile stories is 
"Oliver Optic" (W. T. Adams). 

Francis Bret Harte is a unique writer, who has portrayed with une- 
qualled wit and pathos, life in California. Mr. Harte' s society poems 
are graceful, and his prose burlesques are really excellent. John Hay 
is a popular writer of dialect verse. Charles Godfrey Leland (Hans 
Breitman) is also known largely by his dialect verses. Charles Halpin 
was a poet capable of being both amusing and tender, and Will Carleton 
has long been popular for his homely verses on Western farm life. 

Edgar Fawcett is an accomplished writer of the Swinbumian school. 



OF THE MAKING OF GOOD BOOKS, ETC. 613 

He has devoted himself to literature for the last fifteen years, and has 
been most prolific, both of prose and verse. His "Fantasy and Passion," 
"Song and Story" and "Romance and Revery" represent part of his 
poetry. In addition to his poetry and sketches, Mr. Fawcett has pub- 
lished a number of novels. 

Thomas Bailey Aldrich, journalist, poet and novelist, has done many 
exquisite pieces of work and is remarkable for his versatility. His bal- 
lad of "Baby Bell" is an especially dainty poem. Holding first rank 
among the poets of America, Mr. Aldrich has also entered many other 
fields of literature, in all of which he has excelled. 

Edmund Clarence Stedman first attracted attention by a brilliant 
social satire, called "The Diamond Wedding." Since then, he has 
built up, by patient and careful work, an honorable and enviable place 
as a poet. His style is highly polished, yet forcible. His warlike 
ballad, "How Old Brown took Harper's Ferry," will live long after 
similar poems touching the Civil War are forgotten. 

The Piatts, John James and his wife, Sarah M. Bryan, are poets of 
a delicate and refined order, Paul H. Hayne, of Georgia, has written 
many beautiful sonnets, and holds a foremost place among poets of gen- 
uine feeling and earnest aim. In the South, where he was long the 
leading poet, his memory is greatly loved. 

Thomas Buchanan Read, who wrote "Sheridan's Ride," published 
several volumes of poems. "Drifting," a delicate bit of verse, is widely 
known. Mr. Read was an artist of great talent, and spent many years 
of his life in Florence, Italy. Forsythe Willson, the author of "The 
Old Sergeant," and Elbridge J. Cutler, are among the writers who 
embalm recollections of the war. George Arnold, who died at an early 
age, was a pleasant writer of Bohemian verse. 

Richard Watson Gilder, editor of the Century Magazine^ is a leader 
of a small band of genuine poets. He writes sonnets of rare delicacy. 
His "New Day," "The Poet and His Master" and collected "Poems 
and Lyrics" will rank among the American classics. His poems have 
the true musical rhythm and breathe a spirit of lofty aspiration. 

George Parsons Lathrop is a writer of musical verse, and his wife, 
who is a daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, is well known in the liter- 
ary' world. Mrs. Lathrop' s brother, Julian Hawthorne, is one of the 
best known of living writers. His books have many excellent charac- 
teristics, but suffer in contrast with his father's wonderful works. 

Sidney Lanier was a Southern poet of remarkable promise. His 
untimely death cut short a brilliant career. 



6l4 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

William Dean Howells occupies a prominent place as the leader 
of realistic fiction in America. He began his literary career as 
editor of a small newspaper. He first won a wide reputation by his 
"Italian Journeys" and "Venetian Life," two books of exquisite lit- 
erary- style. He was one of the editors of The Natioji^ and after- 
wards chief editor of the Atlantic Monthly. He has published a 
number of novels which have attained wide popularity. They are 
considered the best type of American fiction. Mr. Howells portrays 
life with a photographic minuteness which is tedious to those who 
admire the dramatic novel, but his style is admirable. 

Henry James, is painstaking and artistic, but he lacks the fine humor 
which distinguishes ]\Ir. Howells. Though he writes on American 
life, it is not representative American life, and while his art may appeal 
to the intellect, he does not succeed in touching the heart. 

Edward Eggleston, an Indiana author, has written invaluable novels 
of backwoods life. 

Elizabeth Stuart Phelps is a writer of remarkable short stories and 
of novels of a religious type. 

E. P. Roe is a novelist who has a wide circle of readers, but whose 
books lack artistic value. He made his reputation upon "Barriers 
Burned Away, ' ' a story of the Chicago fire. 

H. C. Bunner, the editor of the comic weekly, Puck^ has won recog- 
nition as a graceful writer of ^'^ri• de societc. His "Airs from Arcady" 
are bright and clever. Maurice F. Egan and George Edgar Mont- 
gomery are among the rising versifiers. Charles Nordhoflf, the author 
of "Cape Cod Stories" and a volume on California, deserves mention 
as an entertaining writer. Thomas Dunn English wrote the lines of 
"Ben Bolt," which are popular in song. Dr. William A. Hammond 
is the author of a number of very creditable novels. Theodore Win- 
tlirop is known through "Cecil Dreeme" and "John Brent," two fresh 
and racy stories. Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen (who, though not born an 
American, is practically one) is the writer of cliarming Norwegian 
stories, and W. H. Bishop has won a reputation by his sketches of 
travels. 

James Whitcomb Reilly is an Indiana poet, who has dealt with 
homely subjects in a peculiarly felicitous manner. His dialect poems rank 
with the best that have ever been produced. His last volume of poems 
has met with great success. 

Among the women who have written good short poems are Margaret 
J. Preston, Elizabeth Akers Allen, Rose Terry Cooke, Nora Perry, 



OF THE MAKING OF GOOD BOOKS, ETC. 615 

Lucy Larcom, Celia Thaxter and Helen Hunt Jackson. Mrs. Jackson 
wrote a remarkable novel, "Ramona," which was warmly received, and 
she made a lasting reputation by her "Century of Dishonor," which 
dealt with the Indian question. Ella Wheeler Wilcox has written two 
volumes of poetry, which, though they lack literary precision, are very 
popular. 

Louise May Alcott, a daughter of A. B. Alcott, the Transcendent- 
alist, is the best writer of juvenile stories. Her "Little Women" is 
the most widely read of any American book for the yoimg. Harriet 
Prescott Spofford has written several novels in a rich and sumptuous style. 
Her many short stories have never been collected. Mary L. Booth and 
Martha J. Lamb have contributed to historical literature. 

Literature as a profession was, until recently, little followed in the 
South. William Gilmore Simms was one of the first to produce any 
novels with a local coloring. The institutions and traditions of South- 
ern life did not foster literature as a profession. The men who had 
leisure and genius preferred the career of the statesman to the rather pre- 
carious profession of the man of letters. J. P. Kennedy wrote ' 'Horse- 
shoe Robinson" and "Swallow Barn," two books containing faithful 
pictures of the South, but their author was, primarily, a lawyer and a 
politician. Beverley Tucker wrote a novel which Poe pronounced 
"the best American novel." There were a few verse writers like 
Philip Pendleton Cooke and Henry Timrod, but Simms' prophecy that 
there would never be a Southern literature under slave-holding aristoc- 
rary proved true. After the war, the profession of letters began to be 
popular. John Esten Cooke was among the first to write "for bread, 
not fame," and he procured both. Three poets upheld the literary 
claims of the South, but they have all passed away now. They were 
Father Ryan, the poet-priest, and Paul Hamilton Hayne and Sidney 
Lanier, both of whom have been previously mentioned in this chapter. 

To-day there is a most important school of Southern writers, several 
of whom have achieved brilliant success. They are nearly all young 
men and women, who belong to the new era since the war. George 
W. Cable, who stands at the head of the Southern authors, was born 
in 1844. At an early age he was compelled to support himself, and 
served in a number of clerical positions. At nineteen, he entered the 
Confederate army. While in the army he devoted every available 
moment to the study of Latin and the higher mathematics. When the 
war was over he returned to his former home in New Orleans. He was 
absolutely penniless, and began life anew as an errand boy. In 1869, 



6l6 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

he was engaged on the staff of the Picayune^ but being requested to 
take charge of the theatrical cohnnns, he resigned his position because 
he cherished scruples against dramatic entertainments. Strangeh' 
enough, this prejudice once extended to novel reading. Having entered 
a mercantile house as accountant and correspondence clerk, he re- 
mained with the firm until 1S79. During this time he wrote stories 
which have since been collected under the head of "Old Creole Days." 
Encouraged by the success of these stories, he determined to devote 
himself to literature. His first novel, "The Grandissimes, " met with 
a cordial reception. It was followed by the pathetic and tragic story of 
"Madame Delphine," and "Dr. Sevier" was the last of his long stories. 
IMr. Cable confines himself to Southern subjects, and he portrays Creole 
life with a tender sympathy and painstaking realism. In the pages of 
his novels, pathos is blended with a quaint humor, and his style is 
original, polished and fascinating. 

Richard Malcolm Johnston is well known among the writers of the 
South, and belongs to the old regime, although closely identified with 
the new and progressive era. Although a successful lawyer, he gave 
up his practice to accept the chair of belles-lettres in the University of 
Georgia, where he remained until the outbreak of the civil war. His 
first literary venture was the "Dukesborough Tales," and his short 
stories, strong, humorous and original, are now familiar to every maga- 
zine reader. Mr. Johnston deals with Georgia life, and Joel Chandler 
Harris is another writer who depicts characters from the same State. 
Mr. Harris first introduced his readers to the mountaineers and moon- 
shiners of middle Georgia, but "Uncle Remus, His Songs and Sayings," 
a volume of negro folk lore, met with such success that his reputation 
rests chiefly upon the sayings and doings of "Brer Rabbit" and his 
companions. 

Thomas Nelson Page, a young lawyer of Virginia, made his reputa- 
tion upon a story called "]\Iarse Chan," a dramatic, pathetic and 
deliciously humorous little tale. He has contributed a number of 
stories to the magazines, and is a talented writer. Among the younger 
verse writers of the South, Robert Burns Wilson is prominent. Uafca- 
dio Hearn, of Louisiana, writes both prose and verse very acceptably. 

Amonrr the women of the South there has recentlv been a wonder- 
ful activity, and some of them have won phenomenal success. Miss 
Grace King, of New Orleans, wrote a short story, "Monsieur Motte," 
which brought her wide fame. Miss Mary Noailles Murfree made one of 
the literary sensations of the day. Under the noui dc plume of Charles 



OF THE MAKING OF GOOD BOOKS, ETC. 617 

Egbert Craddock, she published several strong stories that won the 
applause of the critics, and met with an enthusiastic reception, "The 
Prophet of the Great Smoky Mountains," which has been much admired 
by every reader, abounds with beautiful and graphic descriptions and is 
written in a vivid and polished style. Miss M. G. McClelland is the 
author of a novel called "Oblivion," which is delicate and charming 
in conception. Miss Frances Courtenay Baylor is another Southern 
woman who has gained prominence, "On Both Sides" is a sketch 
that is a witty and clever production. Miss Julia Magruder has given 
"Across the Chasm" to the public. It is a study of social condition 
since the war, and is a conscientious effort. 

Amelie Rives (now Mrs. Chanler) has risen to literary fame with great 
rapidity. She became known through a short story called ' 'A Brother 
to Dragons. ' ' Her success was instantaneous, and a drama, a number 
of short stories, and two novels have appeared in quick succession. 

Within the past few years there has been a wonderful and increas- 
ing activity in literar}' work all over the United States, and it is 
impossible to enumerate half the writers who have done creditable work. 
William M. Baker, Frank Lee Benedict and J. W. De Forrest are writers 
of good novels. Mrs. A, D, T. Whitney writes excellent stories for 
young girls, Mrs. Louise Chandler Moulton has published many clever 
novelettes. Mrs. Rebecca Harding Davis portrays the sad pictures of 
life among the lower classes. 

Blanche Willis Howard is a writer whose best books are doubtless 
still to come. Mrs. Francis Hodgson Burnett is the writer of many 
delightful books, the best of which are "That Lasso' Lowrie's," a 
novel of life in the Lancashire mines of England, and "Little Lord 
Fauntleroy," an exquisite book for children. "Little Lord Faunt- 
leroy" achieved an unusual popularity. Thousands of copies of the 
books were sold and the story was dramatized. 

Mrs. Anna C, Muller has written three morbid novels of remark- 
able strength, Marion Harland (Mary Virginia Terhune) is a popu- 
lar writer of a mild and homely sort. John Habberton first made 
his reputation by the publication of "Helen's Babies," Constance 
Fenimore Woolson is a writer of skillful analytical novels, Mary 
Hallock Foote, artist and novelist, has devoted both pen and pencil to 
the more picturesque and refined side of life in the Western mountains. 
Mrs. Van Rensselaer holds a leading place among the critics of art and 
architecture. Edith Thomas is one of the best of the younger poets. 
Maurice Thompson is a talented poet and essayist. 



6l8 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

General Lew Wallace will be remembered for two novels of striking 
originality and power. "Ben Hur, " which was first published, is a 
beautiful story, told in a lofty style and with exquisite taste. "The 
Fair God" is totally unlike "Ben Hur," yet scarcely less fascinating. 

Among the writers who have most recently attracted the attention 
of the public are W. W. Astor, whose historical novel, "Valentino," 
takes a permanent place among romantic stories, Henr\^ Harland 
(Sidney Luska), the author of "As It Was Written," and George H. 
Picard, whose "A Matter of Taste" and "A Mission Flower" have 
attracted attention. J. A. Janvier has been successful in a series of 
short stories called "Color Studies." Laurance Hutton has written a 
"History of the American Stage" and "Literary Landmarks of Lon- 
don." One of the most gifted of dramatic critics, as well as a graceful 
poet, is William Winter, who has made valuable additions to dramatic 
biography. 

"Gail Hamilton" (Abigail Dodge) is one of the most forcible of 
American writers, and devotes her pen to social, political and semi- 
scientific subjects. 

Ruth Ellis (Saxe Holm) will long be remembered as the writer 
of some exquisite magazine sketches. j\Iary J. Holmes, Mrs. South- 
worth and Mrs. Evans may be mentioned because of their popularity; 
their literary merits are few. No young writer of recent times gave 
greater promise than Emma Lazarus, who, in criticism, fiction and 
poetry, was equally strong. She died at an early age. 

There has always been an abundance of humor in American litera- 
ture. Of this, Richard Alsop may be said to be the father. No 
newspaper is considered complete in America without its humorous 
paragrapher, and in this direction alone many have won renown. Seba 
Smith ("Major Jack Downing"), P. B. Shillaber ("Mrs. Partington"), 
George D. Prentice, George H. Derby ("John Phoenix"), Charles 
Farrar Browne ("Artemus Ward"), Henry W. Shaw ("Josh Billings"), 
David Ross Locke ("Petroleum V. Nasby"), Robert H. Newell 
("Orpheus C. Kerr") and Samuel L. Clemens ("Mark Twain") are 
among the most noted of our many amusing writers. At present "Bob 
Burdette," "Bill Nye," Opie P. Read ("The Arkansas Traveler") and 
Eugene Field are well known. Charles Dudley Warner and Frank 
Stockton are humorists of a more delicate type. 

James Parton is known for his many biographies of prominent men. 
Edward Everett Hale has written a large number of interesting stories, 
and is an authority on the early French and Spanish periods of this 



OF THE MAKING OF GOOD BOOKS, ETC. 619 

country. Thomas Wentworth Higginson is a writer of much versa- 
tility. One of his last works is a young folk's history of the United 
States, which is condensed and readable. John Fiske is known as one 
of our most brilliant students of modern philosophy. Joseph Cook is 
one of our most radical thinkers. David Swing is known for his 
scholarly writings and lectures on religious topics. These last two men 
furnish a connecting link between writers and lecturers. 

For many years Henry Ward Beecher stood at the head of the 
American platform. Robert Colyer and T. De Witt Talmage are 
among the most popular divines. In this connection it may be men- 
tioned that in 1875 Cardinal McCloskey, the first Roman Catholic 
Cardinal in the United States, was consecrated in New York, John 
B. Gough has won more fame than any temperance lecturer in the 
countr>^ Dwight L. Moody has been the most successful evangelist. 
Kate Field, Anna Dickinson, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary L. Liver- 
more and Susan B. Anthony are the foremost women on the lecture 
platform. 

Chief among the tragedians that have made great names in America 
are Edwin Forrest, Lucius Junius Booth, Edwin Booth, Lawrence 
Barrett, Charlotte Cushman and Mary Anderson. John McCullough 
has distinguished himself in heroic plays. James O'Neil has won a 
reputation in romantic dramas. The Davenports have been a family 
of excellent actors. Matilda Heron and Clara Morris are the leaders 
in what is known as the emotional drama, "Lotta" (Miss Crabtree) 
has the widest reputation of American soubrettes. W. J. Florence and 
his wife and Miss Ada Rehan have excelled in legitimate comedy. 
Joseph Jefferson is the greatest of American comedians and comes of a 
long line of actors. 

It has not been the habit of Americans to cultivate the arts to any 
great extent, and they have usually relied upon other countries for their 
musicians. Among the Americans who have won fame as singers are 
Clara Louise Kellogg, Anna Louis Cary, Myron W. Whitney, Emma 
Nevada, Zelda Seguin, Thomas Karl and Jessie Bartlett Davis. 

Nor should the influence of the Americans in journalism be ignored. 
With all its faults, flippancy and blemishes, the American newspa- 
per represents, in enterprise, in fearlessness and in fairness, the highest 
type of journalism, and for the many delightful writers it has brought 
forward, if for no other reason, it should be fostered as an institution 
conferring a distinct and lasting good on the morals of the nation. Not 
to repeat the names of many of the writers already mentioned in this 



620 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

chapter who have made their first reputation through the press, there is 
a brilliant list of men and women who have won success upon the news- 
papers alone. Among these may be mentioned James Gordon Bennett, 
Sr., founder of the New Yoi'k Herald; Charles A. Dana, of the Sim; 
George D. Prentice, Henry Watterson, John Swinton, Samuel Bowles, 
Carl Schurz, Horace White, George Alfred Townsend ("Gath") White- 
law Reid, Joseph Howard, Jr., Olive Logan, ]^Irs. IMargaretF. Sullivan, 
and many others. 

FOR FURTHER READING: 

Some successful American books. 

Emerson's Essavs. 

O. W. Holmes' "Breakfast-Table Series." 

Longfellow's Poems. 

Brj'ant's Poems. 

Stoddart's Poems. 

S. Lanier's Poems. 

Mrs. Burnett's "That Lass o' Lowrie's." 

Mrs. Burnett's "Little Lord Fauntleroy." 

Amelie Rives' "Famer Lass o' Piping Pebworth." 

Lew Wallace's "Ben Hur." 

Mi.ss Murfree's "Tales of the Tennessee Mountains." 

Cable's "Tales of Creole Life." 

Miss Woolson's "Ea.st Angels." 

Bret Harte's "California Tales." 

The poems of Edith Thomas. 



CHAPTER CVIII. 

ITS ORGANIZATION AND DUTIES — THE LIVES OF THE CHIEF JUSTICES. 




0<4 



HE Supreme Court of the United States has been 
called the balance wheel of the Government. It 
represents permanence in the constantly moving 
and changing of the Federal machinery. The 
wisest and most conservative men of the nation 
are chosen for its bench, and the members are ap- 
pointed for life, so that their positions are not affected 
by political changes. In recent years the proceedings of the 
Supreme Court have rarely attracted attention, but in the 
early periods of the Government, its decisions did much to 
guide and shape the public policy of the United States. 
The first section of the third article of the Constitution 
declares that the judicial power of the United States shall 
be vested in one Superior Court and such inferior courts 
as Congress may, from time to time, authorize. The 
creation of such courts was consequently one of the first and most 
important duties of Congress. In September, 1789, the Judiciary Bill 
was approved. It provided that the Supreme Court should consist of a 
Chief Justice and five Associate Justices, four of whom should constitute 
a quorum; but Associate Justices should have precedence according to 
the date of their commission, or if the commission of two or three 
should bear the same date, then according to the respective ages of 
those so commissioned. It divided the United States into thirteen dis- 
tricts, and created a court called the District Court, consisting of 
one judge for each district. Three circuits were also established, called 
the Eastern, Middle and Southern Circuits, each one including several of 
the districts. The ofHce of marshal was created for each district, and 
each court was empowered to appoint its own clerk. 



622 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Immediately after the approval of the Judiciary Bill, President 
Washington nominated the first Justices of the United States Supreme 
Court. John Jay, of New York, was named Chief Justice, and William 
Cushing, of ]\Iassachusetts; James Wilson, of Pennsylvania; John 
Blair, of Virginia; Robert A. Harrison, of Maryland, and James Iredell, 
of North Carolina, were nominated as Associate Justices. John Rut- 
ledge, of South Carolina, was also appointed an Associate Justice, but 
he did not attend any session of the court until he took his seat as Chief 
Justice. The name of Edmund Randolph was at the same time sent to 
the Senate as Attorney-General. These nominations were all imme- 
diately confirmed. The salaries of the Justices were fixed by law — that 
of the Chief Justice at four thousand dollars, and each of his associates 
at thirty-five hundred dollars. 

The first term of court was held in the city of New York in the 
month of February, 1790, when three Justices assembled in New York, 
only to find that there was no work for them to do. On the lotli of 
February court adjourned until the 2d of August, and the Justices 
went oflf to attend the circuit courts. The judiciary power, when first 
created, extended over thirteen States, each State constituting a district. 
In place of the original thirteen districts, there is now a district for 
each State, and more than one in several of the larger States. It is the 
duty of the Justices of the Supreme Court to hold court in its various 
districts, and this is called circuit duty. In the early days of the Gov- 
ernment, several Justices objected to this added labor imposed by 
judiciary act, and Chief Justice Marshall was of the opinion that it was 
an imconstitutional requirement. It is said that he suggested to his 
associates the propriety of declining to sit in the circuit courts. The 
othei Justices agreed with him, but as they had long acquiesced, it was 
considered wise to continue to perform the duty. So, from the organ- 
ization of the court until the present day, with the exception of one 
year, at the close of the Administration of the elder Adams — when the 
law requiring such dut}' was repealed, only to be re-enacted — the 
Justices have continued to perform circuit duty. In consequence of the 
large number of cases growing out of the late Rebellion, Congress was 
compelled to pass a measure of relief, and in the year 1869, a number 
of circuit judgeshii^s were created. The Justices of the Supreme Court 
were not, however, excused from circuit service, but their duties were so 
relaxed that each one is now compelled to attend only one term of circuit 
court in each district every two years. The judiciary power conferred by 
the Constitution has remained substantially the same to the present day. 



THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 623 

In 1793, the court convened in Philadelphia, and there all terms 
were held until 1801, when the court followed the general Government 
to the city of Washington, where, in the year 1802, it was permanently 
located. For several years the Supreme Court found very little business 
to transact. In 1801, when John Marshall was appointed Chief Justice, 
the number of cases awaiting adjudication was only ten. For the next 
five years the average was about twenty-five a year. With the last 
thirty years, however, the cases have rapidly multiplied, and there have 
been so many cases on the docket that it has been almost impossible for 
the Justices to keep pace with the work. 

It is just one hundred years (1889) since the first bench of the Su- 
preme Court was appointed, and there have been but eight Chief Justices. 
The Attorney-General, though more properly belonging to the executive 
branch of the Government, being a member of the President's council, 
is, nevertheless, considered one of the Supreme Court. Until 1870, 
when the ofhce of Solicitor-General was created, his duties were very 
heavy. The work is now divided, and the Solicitor-General gives his 
special attention to the court proceedings, while the Attorney-General 
is occupied in attending to State duties and giving legal advice to the 
President and heads of departments. 

The name of John Jay, the first Chief Justice, should be specially 
venerated. He was also first Chief Justice of the State of New York. 
John Jay was born in the city of New York, December 12, 1745. His 
father was of French ancestry and his mother belonged to one of the 
oldest families of the Dutch colonies. At the age of seven years, he is 
said to have been of a very grave disposition and inclined to study. 
At eight, he was sent to a grammar school, and at fourteen, entered 
King's College, in the city of New York, where he was graduated in 
1764. His father and grandfather had been merchants, but he selected 
the profession of the law. After being admitted to the bar, he associated 
himself with Robert R. Livingston, the future Chancellor. But they 
soon dissolved their business connection. His quiet professional life 
was broken by the contest between the colonies and the mother country. 
He was one of the first to speak for freedom. In 1774 he was a mem- 
ber of the convention which met at New York. Though only twenty- 
nine years old, he was one of the committee to draft an address to the 
people of Great Britain. This celebrated address is said to have come 
from his pen, and was composed and written in a room in an obscure 
tavern. While a delegate to Congress, Jay was elected, in 1776, to a 
seat in the Colonial Congress. This Congress comprised the best men 



524 '^^^ STORY OF AMERICA. 

of the colonies. After the framing of the new Constitution, he was 
chosen to the place of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New 
York, which he at once accepted, and Robert Livingston was appointed 
Chancellor. The Judiciary Bill, organized in the courts, was approved 
September 24, 1789. On the ver>' day of its approval President Wash- 
ington sent in the name of John Jay for the office of the Chief Justice 
of the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1794 Chief Justice Jay 
was sent as special envoy to England to negotiate a treaty, which is 
known in histor>' by his name. He resigned his position on the bench 
on his return from England, in 1795, having been elected Governor of 
New York. He retired from public life when only fifty-six years old, 
after holding many prominent positions, the best in the gift of the 
people. He was a pronounced revolutionist, and was one of the 
leading advocates of independence. He was a man of strong intellect, 
courageous and yet conservative in his actions. He lived for a quarter 
of a centur>' in retirement, and died in the eighty-fourth year of his age. 
Upon the resignation of Chief Justice Jay, President Washington 
immediately sent the name of John Rutledge to the Senate as the next 
Chief Justice. John Rutledge was a man of strong character, chief 
among the South Carolina revolutionary leaders, and first in station and 
influence among the many competitors, whose names are treasured in 
the history of his State. His education was the best that the colony 
could afford. Having made all the progress that he could in Charleston, 
he was sent to England, where he finished his education and studied 
law. He returned to Charleston and commenced the practice of his 
profession in 1781, being not quite twenty-two years old. He immedi- 
ately rose to prominence. He commenced life under the most favorable 
auspices, and in the first part of his career, success met him at every 
step. He was elected Judge of the South Carolina Court of Chancery 
in 1784, and held many other responsible offices. The President 
appointed him during recess of the courts, and he took his seat in the 
August term of 1795, without having passed the ordeal of the approval 
of the Senate. On the 15th of December, the Senate refused to confinn 
his nomination, because he had opposed the Jay Treaty. The refusal to 
confirm him was due to the opposition of the Federal party, and not to 
any personal disqualification. Even had he been confirmed, he would 
not have been able to serve, for while his confirmation was pending, his 
strong and vigorous mind became unsettled, and his brilliant intellect 
was henceforth clouded. The Senate had scarcely set its seal of 
disapprobation upon his name when rumors reached Philadelphia that 



THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 625 

he was insane. His malady was partly due to exposure in the service 
of his countr}'. He died in the summer of 1800. He had many 
admirable traits. He was a typical Southern statesman, haughty, 
generous, frank and ardent in nature, yet not always discreet in action. 

When the Senate refused to confirm Rutledge as Chief Justice, 
President Washington sent in the name of William Gushing, of Massa- 
chusetts, an Associate Justice of the Court. The Senate immediately 
confirmed him, but he held his commission only a week, when he 
resigned, preferring to remain in the less prominent position of Associate 
Justice. His name is, therefore, not counted among those of the Chief 
Justices. 

Oliver Ellsworth was a Senator in Congress at the time that the 
Senate refused to confirm Rutledge, and as a member of the Federal 
party, he naturally voted against the President's nomination. Called 
to the bar a few years before the Revolution, he had early attained a 
high position in his profession. At the close of the Revolution, in 
which he had taken an active part, he returned to his native State to 
take his seat on the bench of the Connecticut Superior Court. He was 
born at Windsor, a small village in the interior of the State, April 29, 
1745, and was brought up in the simple, frugal manner that prevailed 
in England. He concentrated the whole power of his mind upon his 
chosen profession. He was a man of great application and excellent 
foresight. When he went to Congress, in 1778, he left the most lucra- 
tive law practice in Connecticut. 

President Washington belonged to no party; he was, therefore, not 
estranged from his Federalist friends when they voted against the nomi- 
nation of Rutledge. Justice Cushing having declined to serve as Chief 
Justice, Ellsworth was finally selected and promptly confirmed. He 
serv^ed honorably, making many wise decisions. He died November 
26, 1807, in the sixty-third year of his age. The inscription on his 
tomb is a good summary of his character. It reads: "Amiable and 
exemplary in all relations of a domestic, social and Christian character, 
pre-eminently useful in all ofiices he sustained, whose great talent, under 
the guidance of inflexible integrity, consummate wisdom and enlightened 
zeal, placed him among the first and most illustrious statesmen who 
achieved the independence and established the Constitution of the 
American Republic." 

John Marshall, whose judicial career extended over a period of 
thirty-five years, was the next Chief Justice. He was born in German- 
town, Virginia, September 24, 1755. He early showed a remarkable 



626 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

aptitude for study, and was deeply engaged in his law books when 
Patrick Henr>''s thrilling words caused him to leave his studies to 
become a member of the militia. He fought bravely in the Continental 
Army, and became captain in a company, under the command of 
General Washington. He was elected to the Virginia Legislature in 
1792, but soon retired to practice the profession of the law. He was 
afterward called to the service of his country in a number of public 
offices. President Washington tendered him the office of Attorney- 
General, but he declined it on account of his large law practice. He 
was one of the most prominent figures of his time, and, upon the 
resignation of Ellsworth, Adams sent the name of Marshall to the 
Senate, where it was immediately confirmed. Many noted cases were 
tried before the Supreme Court while John Marshall was Chief Justice. 
The most celebrated was that of Aaron Burr, who was arraigned ]\Iay 
22, 1807. Burr was his own chief counsel, and great legal talent was 
exhibited at the trial. The greatest interest was awakened in the 
decision. Chief Justice Marshall delivered it in the most impressive 
manner, but a great many people were disappointed, and many adverse 
opinions were expressed. According to the letter of the law, the Chief 
Justice felt that he could not pronounce Aaron Burr guilty of treason, 
and he declared that the case against Burr was not proven. He was, 
therefore, the means of saving Aaron Burr's life. On July 6, 1835, 
Chief Justice Marshall died. He was a man of well-balanced mind, 
keen and inflexible in character. It is said that he had no frays in 
boyhood, no quarrels in manhood. 

Roger Brooke Taney, who succeeded Marshall, was born March 17, 
1777, in Calvert County, Maryland. His ancestors belonged to the 
early settlers. He was educated at Dickinson College, Carlisle, and 
was graduated in 1795. He studied law and was admitted to the bar 
in 1799. The same year he was a delegate to the General Assembly of 
Maryland, when less than twenty-three years old. He settled in P'red- 
erick and began the practice of law. After serving in the ]\Iar>'land 
Senate, he removed to Baltimore, in 1823. While practicing law in 
Baltimore, he had charge of many celebrated cases in the Federal 
courts. In June, 1831, he was appointed Attorney-General at the 
reconstruction of President Jackson's Cabinet, This was a period of 
stormy debates, heated party discussions and bitter political controver- 
sies. The celebrated panic controversy is perhaps the most celebrated. 
There was a great discussion about removing the deposits from the 
United States Bank, and Taney was strongly in favor of the measure. 



THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 627 

In September, 1833, President Jackson appointed him Secretary of the 
Treasury, and the 2 2d of the same month he issued his famous order 
for the removal of the deposits from the bank, or more correctly speak- 
ing, he directed that the collectors of revenue should cease to make their 
deposits in the bank. The accounts actually in the bank were to be 
left and drawn out at intervals in different sums, according to Govern- 
ment disbursements. The measure caused much criticism, and the dis- 
cussion was transferred to the Legislature at the opening of the cele- 
brated "panic session" of Congress, in 1833, the Senate refusing to 
confirm him as Secretary of the Treasury. 

In January, 1835, President Jackson appointed Taney to fill a 
vacancy on the Supreme Bench, caused by the death of one of the Asso- 
ciate Justices. The Senate declined to act upon the appointment, as 
Taney had made many political enemies. When Chief Justice Marshall 
died, in the summer, the President again sent Taney's name to the 
Senate, this time as the nominee for the vacant place of the Chief Jus- 
tice. This nomination was not confirmed until March, 1836. Chief 
Justice Taney took his seat upon the bench in January, 1837. On Octo- 
ber 12, 1864, he died, iu his eighty- fourth year, after a public life that 
was full of great events. One of the most celebrated opinions delivered 
by Justice Taney was the one regarding the celebrated Dred Scott case. 
This case had awakened universal interest at a time when abolition was 
one of the great questions of the day. This case decided that a "free 
negro of the African race, whose ancestors were brought to this country, 
is not a citizen within the meaning of the Constitution of the United 
States. ' ' This decision created wide-spread discussion and much indig- 
nation among Abolitionists. It was, however, technically correct under 
the Constitution. There was no sadder figure in Washington during 
the years of the war than that of the aged Chief Justice. He was 
shunned by the men who were willing to sacrifice their lives for the 
freedom of the slaves, and he was distrusted by the North. The harsh 
judgment formed of him then has been softened by time, and he is 
remembered as an upright and able judge, 

Salmon P. Chase succeeded Justice Taney, as Chief Justice of the 
Supreme Court. He was born in Cornish, New Hampshire, in 1808. 
He was poor, and he gained his education by hard work and self-denial. 
He was admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia in 1829. He 
soon became prominent in politics. He served in the United States 
Senate from 1849 to 1855, and was Governor of Ohio from 1855 to 1857. 
Belonging first to the Democratic party, he was the leader of the anti- 



628 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

slavery element until the rise of the Republican party, of which he was 
one of the original organizers and most conspicuous members. A lead- 
ing candidate for the presidential nomination in i860, he was oflfered by 
his successful competitor. President Lincoln, a place in the first Repub- 
lican Cabinet, in 1861, and left the Senate, to which he had just been 
chosen for a term of six years. As Secretary of the Treasury, he is 
noted as having performed the wonderful task of supplying the Govern- 
ment with money to carry on the war. The Bond and Legal Tender 
acts and the national bank system were, in great measure, originated by 
him. On the death of Justice Taney, President Lincoln appointed 
Chase to fill the vacant position of Chief Justice. He had never sat on 
the bench in any court, and he had not distinguished himself at the bar. 
He had, however, a thorough knowledge of the Government, and was 
of a strong, well-balanced mind and a calm, self-reliant disposition. 
His service on the Supreme Bench was cut short by his death, in 1873, 
at the age of sixty-five. The Dred Scott decision was set aside by him 
in a peculiar way. On February i, 1865, Senator Sumner appeared in 
the Supreme Court, accompanied by a colored man, and said: "May it 
please the court, I present John S. Rock, a member of the bar of the 
State of Massachusetts, and move that he be admitted as a counsellor of 
this Court. ' ' The Chief Justice bowed and said : ' 'Let him come forward 
and take the oath." The Supreme Court thus acknowledged the 
equality of the colored man. 

Chief Justice Chase was virtually the founder of the great Republican 
party. He presided over the Senate during the impeachment of 
President Johnson. His public life was closely interwoven with the 
early slavery agitation, and his name occupies a high place in the 
history of the war epoch. Chief Justice Chase was succeeded by 
Morrison R. Waite, of Ohio, who was appointed by President Grant, in 
1874. Justice Waite was born in Lyme, Connecticut, in 1816, and was 
graduated at Yale College, in 1837. He rapidly rose to an eminent 
position at the bar of the State of Ohio. In 1849, ^^^ was elected to the 
legislature, and, in 1873, was chosen as a delegate to the convention 
called to frame a new State constitution for Ohio. Chief Justice Waite 
has but a short political history. He was a man of sound judgment 
and conservative views, and discharged the duties of his high office in a 
creditable manner. On March 23, 1888, he died at his home in Wash- 
ington City. 

On May i, 1888, President Cleveland nominated Melville W. Fuller 
to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Justice Waite. Melville 



THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 629 

Weston Fuller was born in Augusta, Maine, on February 11, 1833. At 
the age of sixteen, he entered Bowdoin College, being graduated in 
1853. He began the study of law in the office of his uncle, George 
Melville Weston, at Bangor. He also attended a course of lectures at 
tlje Harvard Law School. He began to practice law in 1855, entering 
into partnership with his uncle, the Hon. Benjamin A. J. Fuller, at 
Augusta. He was also associated with his uncle in the Age^ then one 
of the leading democratic papers of the State. In 1856, he was elected 
to the common council of Augusta, and became its president. He 
was also the city solicitor. Although but twenty-three years of age, 
he showed remarkable talent as a lawyer, and achieved an enviable 
position at the bar. In 1856, he decided to go west, and he settled in 
Chicago. There his abilities were speedily recognized, and he at once 
established a large practice. In his law practice, he was noted for his 
thorough methods. Although naturally quick in his perceptions, he 
studied his cases exhaustively. As a fluent, earnest advocate, he has 
few equals. He was highly esteemed and respected by his associates 
at the Chicago bar. 

He had quite an extensive practice in the Federal courts, and it is 
a curious coincidence that in the first case heard before the late Chief 
Justice Waite, Justice Fuller was the counsel. That was in 1874, and 
after that time he had many cases before the Supreme Court. In 
1 86 1, he was a member of the convention called to revise the Constitu- 
tion of the State of Illinois. A year later he was elected to the Illinois 
Legislature, in which he served one term. A man of scholarly habits, 
familiar with several continental languages, and fond of philosophical 
research. Chief Justice Fuller is a man of broad culture and worthy of 
the high position to which he was called. His appointment was 
favorably received by all the legal profession throughout the countr>'. 

The organization of the Supreme Court has more than once been 
changed. Originally consisting of a Chief Justice and five Associate 
Justices, it was enlarged, in 1807, by the addition of a sixth Associate. 
The States of Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee had come into the Union 
and were made into a new circuit, represented on the bench by Thomas 
Todd, of Tennessee. In 1837, two more Justices were added, and in 
1863, a ninth Associate Justice was appointed to give the Pacific Coast 
a representative. This was thought to be a good policy at a time when 
the United States was engaged in the war of the Rebellion. Stephen 
J. Field, of California, was the appointee. When Justice Catron died, 
in 1865, Congress was in the midst of its long, serious trouble with 



630 THE STORY OK AMERICA. 

President Johnson. To prevent the appointment of a Democrat in 
sympathy with President Johnson's Southern policy, a law was passed, 
forbidding the filling of the existing vacancy, or of any future vacancy, 
until the number of Associate Judges should be reduced to six. The 
death of Justice Wayne, in 1867, reduced the number to seven. In 
1869, a new law increased the number to eight, and President Grant 
appointed Justices Strong and Bradley. 

The Supreme Court now consists of Chief Justice Fuller and 
Associate Justices Samuel F. Miller, of Iowa; Stephen J. Field, of 
California; Joseph P. Bradley, of New Jersey; John M. Harlan, of Ken- 
tucky; Horace Gray, of Massachusetts; Samuel Blatchford, of New 
York, and Lucius O. C. Lamar, of Mississippi. President Cleveland 
appointed Justice Lamar November 4, 1888, to succeed the late Justice 
William B. Woods, who died May 14, 1887. The death of Justice 
Stanley Matthews, on March 22, 1889, leaves a vacancy at present on 
the bench. 

The sessions of the Supreme Court are now held in the room 
immediately over the library, a place full of interesting associations, for 
it was the old Senate chamber. It is in the form of a semi-circle. Its 
entrance is on the convex side, and the eye of the visitor is first attracted 
to the judicial bench. Above the bench is a gallery, not now used, but 
from which thousands have listened to exciting debates in the past. 
Previous to the erection of the grand wings — which, next to the dome, 
are the chief attractions of the Capitol — the court-room was located on 
the ground floor and reached by a dark passageway leading from the 
center of the building. This room is now the Law Library of Con- 
gress, and sometimes called "The Library of the Supreme Court." Its 
long rows of solid volumes, arranged for the convenience of the Judges, 
extend around the walls and presents no particular attraction to the 
public. The librarian's desk is an object of interest. Mahogany, 
dark with age, it is not handsome, yet it is the desk behind which Van 
Buren and several other Presidents sat out their terms. To the lawyer of 
the olden time, the room is full of reminiscences. It was here that the 
deep, sonorous tones of Webster were heard. It vibrated with the 
eloquence of Clay, the keen wit of Martin and the brilliant utter- 
ances of Wirt, Berrian, Butler and Crittenden. 

ISIost of the seats in front of the Judges' bench are reserved for mem- 
bers of the bar, but on both sides of the room are seats for the public. 
The sessions of the court commence the first Monday in December. 
Between 11 and 12 o'clock each day the court enters the chamber, pre- 
ceded by the marshal, who proclaims in a clear voice: "The Honorable 



THE SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 63 1 

Chief Justice and Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United 
States. ' ' Arrayed in robes of black silk, not unlike the clerical gowns, 
the Judges follow the Chief Justice and ascend the bench upon his right 
and left. The bench, however, has long been only a tradition in all 
our courts. Each Justice of the Supreme Court has a chair to suit his 
own ideas of what constitutes a comfortable seat. Some of the chairs 
have high backs and rest the head, some have low backs, some have 
cushions and some are not upholstered. The Chief Justice sits in the 
middle of the row and the other Justices are arranged according to the 
order of their commission. Before seating themselves, the Justices 
stand a moment in front of their chairs and all bow to the bar. The 
lawyers return the salute. Then the Judges sit down, the Associates 
being careful, however, not to occupy their chairs before the Chief 
Justice. The court is opened by the crier, who exclaims: "Oyez! 
Oyez! Oyez! all persons having business with the honorable Supreme 
Court of the United States are admonished to draw near and give atten- 
tion, for the court is now sitting. God save the United States and 
this honorable court." 

The proceedings of the Supreme Court are impressive and simple. 
The arguments are delivered in low, conversational tones. There is a 
tradition that the first Justices wore red gowns, but there is no author- 
ity for this. The first Judges of the Supreme Court did not adopt any 
peculiar fashion of wig as a mark of their office, but the short queue 
seems to have been worn by all. It is said that when Cushing, who 
was a member of the original court, arrived in New York and put on 
the big wig that he had worn on the Massachusetts bench, he was fol- 
lowed up Broadway by a mob of boys. He immediately hastened to a 
shop and bought a peruke of the style then in vogue. 

Every Saturday during the terms of court, the Justices meet in the 
consultation room and discuss cases. All the cases must be examined 
by all the Justices, and when a decision is reached, the Chief Justice 
designates the Justice who is to write the opinion. Opinions are read 
and approved in the consultation room before they are delivered in open 
court. If there is a disagreement, the dissenting Justices prepare their 
opinions. The business of the Supreme Court is divided into two 
general classes: Cases in which it has original jurisdiction, and cases 
which come to it from the lower courts. If a citizen of the United 
States wishes to sue a foreign minister or council, he could not have 
recourse to any State tribunal, but must go directly to the Supreme 
Court. The Supreme Court has original jurisdiction in habeas corpus 



632 THE STORY OF AxM ERICA. 

acts affecting persons in jail by the operation of the United States law. 
A large majority of the cases before the Supreme Court come under the 
appellate powers; that is, cases decided by the lower courts, and which 
involve what are called Federal questions, can be appealed to the United 
States Supreme Court. The largest number of cases decided by the 
Supreme Court come up from the lower tribunals. 

In 1877, the court was called upon to furnish five of its members to 
the commission appointed to settle the disputed title of the presidency. 
The Electoral Commission, as it was called, was composed of five 
Justices, five Senators and five Representatives. The members of the 
Supreme Court who served were Justices Clifford, Field, Bradley, Miller 
and Strong. 



LIST OF 

PRESIDENTS AND VICE-PRESIDENTS. 



No. 



President. 
Term of Office. 



1 George Washington, 

Two terms, 1789-97. 

2 John Adams, 

One term, 1 797-1801. 

3 Thomas Jefferson, 

Two terms, 1801-09, 

4 James Madison, 

Two terms, 1809-17. 

5 James Monroe, 

Two terms, 1817-25. 

6 John Q. Adams, - 

One term, 1825-29. 

7 Andrew Jackson, - 

Two terms, 1829-37. 

8 Martin Van Buren, - 

One term, 1837-41. 

9 William H. Harrison, - 

One month, 1841. 

10 John Tyler, - - - 

Three years and 11 months, 1841-45. 

11 James K. Polk, - - - Tennessee. 

One term, 1845-49. 

12 Zachary Taylor, - - - Louisiana. - 

One year and 4 months, 1849-50. 

13 Millard Fillmore, - - New York. 

Two years and 8 months, 1850-53. 

14 Franklin Pierce, - - - New Hampshire 

One term, 1853-57. 

15 James Buchanan, - - Pennsylvania. 

One term, 1857-61. 



State. 


Vice-President. 


Virginia, - 


John Adams. 


Massachusetts. 


Thomas Jeflferson. 


Virginia. - 


Aaron Burr. 




George Clinton. 


Virginia. 


George Clinton. 




Elbridge Gerry. 


Virginia. - 


Daniel D. Tompkins. 


Massachusetts. 


John C. Calhoun. 



Tennessee. 



New York. 



Ohio. 



Virginia. 



John C. Calhoun. 
Martin Van Buren. 
Richard M. Johnson, 

John Tyler. 



George M. Dallas. 
Millard Fillmore. 

William R. King. 
J. C. Breckinridge. 



634 



THE STORY OF AMERICA. 



President. 
Term of Office. 



State. 



Illinois. 



1 6 Abraham Lincoln, 

One term and i month. 

17 Andrew Johnson, - - Tennessee. 

Three years and 1 1 months. 

18 Ulysses S. Grant, - - Illinois. 

Two teniis, 1869-77. 

19 Rutherford B. Hayes, 

One term, 1877-81. 

20 James A. Garfield, 

Six and a half months, i 

21 Chester A. Arthur, - 

Three years, 5 and a half months, i S 

22 Grover Cleveland, - - New York 

One term, 1885-89. 

23 Benjamin Harrison, - - Indiana. 

1 889-. 



Ohio. - 
Ohio. 

;8i. 

New York. 



Vice-President. 

Hannibal Hamlin. 
Andrew Johnson. 



Schuyler Colfax. 
Henr>' Wilson, 
William A. Wheeler. 

Chester A. Arthur. 



51-85. 



Thos. A. Hendricks. 



Levi P. Morton. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 



We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect 
union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the 
common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings 
of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this 
Constitution for the United States of America. 

ARTICLE I. 

Section i. All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested 
in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and 
House of Representatives. 

Sec. 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of mem- 
bers chosen ever}' second year by the people of the several States, and 
the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for 
electors of the most numerous branches of the State legislature. 

No person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to 
the age of twenty-five years, and been seven years a citizen of the United 
States, and who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State 
in which he shall be chosen. 

Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the 
several States which may be included within this Union, according to 
their respective numbers, which shall be determined by adding to the 
whole number of free persons, including those bound to service for a 
term of years, and, excluding Indians not taxed, three-fifths of all other 
persons. The actual enumeration shall be made within three years 
after the first meeting of the Congress of the United States and within 
every subsequent term of ten years, in such a manner as they shall by 
law direct. The number of Representatives shall not exceed one for 
every thirty thousand, but each shall have at least one Representative; 
and, until such enumeration shall be made, the State of New Hamp- 
shire shall be entitled to choose three, Massachusetts eight, Rhode 
Island and Providence Plantations one, Connecticut five. New York 
six, New Jersey four, Pennsylvania eight, Delaware one, Maryland six, 
Virginia ten. North Carolina five, South Carolina five and Georgia 
three. 

When vacancies happen in the representation from any State, the 



636 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

executive authority thereof shall issue writs of election to fill such 
vacancies. 

The House of Representatives shall choose their Speaker and other 
oflBcers and shall have the sole power of impeachment. 

Sec. 3. The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two 
Senators from each State, chosen by the legislature thereof for six years, 
and each Senator shall have one vote. 

Immediately after they shall be assembled in consequence of the first 
election, they shall be divided, as equally as may be, into three classes. 
The seats of the Senators of the first class shall be vacated at the expi- 
ration of the second year, of the second class at the expiration of the 
fourth year, and of the third class at the expiration of the sixth year, 
so that one-third may be chosen every second year, and if vacancies 
happen, by resignation or otherwise, during the recess of the legislature 
of any State, the executive thereof may make temporar}- appointments 
until the next meeting of the legislature, which shall then fill such 
vacancies. 

No person shall be a Senator who shall not have attained the age 
of thirty years, and been nine years a citizen of the United States, and 
who shall not, when elected, be an inhabitant of that State for which he 
shall be chosen. 

The Vice-President of the United States shall be President of the 
Senate, but shall have no vote unless they be equally divided. 

The Senate shall choose their other officers, and also a president 
pro tempore^ in the absence of the Vice-President, or when he shall 
exercise the office as President of the United States. 

The Senate shall have the sole power to try all impeachments. 
When sitting for that purpose they shall be on oath or affirmation. 
When the President of the United States is tried, the Chief Justice shall 
preside, and no person shall be convicted without the concurrence of 
two-thirds of the members present. 

Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to 
removal from office, and disqualification to hold any office of honor, 
trust or profit under the United States; but the party convicted shall, 
nevertheless, be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment and 
punishment according to law. 

Sec. 4. The times, places and manner of holding elections for 
Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the 
legislature thereof; but the Congress may, at any time, by law, make 
or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 637 

The Congress shall assemble at least once every year; and such meet- 
ing shall be on th,e first Monday in December, unless they shall by law- 
appoint a different day. 

Sec. 5. Each house shall be the judge of elections, returns and 
qualifications of its own members; and a majority of each shall constitute 
a quorum to do business; but a smaller number may adjourn from day 
to day, and may be authorized to compel the attendance of absent 
members, in such manner, and under such penalties as each house may 
provide. Each house may determine the rules of' its proceedings, 
punish its members for disorderly behavior, and, with the concurrence 
of two- thirds, expel a member. 

Each house shall keep a journal of its proceedings, and from time 
to time publish the same, excepting such parts as may, in their judg- 
ment, require secrecy; and the yeas and nays of the members of either 
house, on any question, shall, at the desire of one-fifth of those present, 
be entered on the journal. 

Neither house, during the session of Congress, shall, without the 
consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days, nor to any other 
place than that in which the two houses shall be sitting. 

Sec. 6. The Senators and Representatives shall receive a compen- 
sation for their services, to be ascertained by law, and paid out of the 
Treasury of the United States. They shall, in all cases except treason, 
felony, and breach of the peace, be privileged from arrest during their 
attendance at the session of their respective houses, and in going to and 
returning from the same; and for any speech or debate in either house, 
they shall not be questioned in any other place. 

No Senator or Representative shall, during the time for which he 
was elected, be appointed to any civil office under the authority of 
the United States which shall have been created, or the emoluments 
whereof shall have been increased, during such time; and no person 
holding any office under the United States shall be a member of either 
house during his continuance in office. 

Sec. 7. All bills for raising revenue shall originate in the House of 
Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with amend- 
ments, as on other bills. 

Every bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and 
the Senate, shall, before it become a law, be presented to the President 
of the United States; if he approve, he shall sign it, but if not, he shall 
return it, with his objections, to that house in which it shall have 
originated, who shall enter the objections at large on their journal, and 



638 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

proceed to reconsider it. If, after such reconsideration, two- thirds of 
that house shall agree to pass the bill, it shall be sent, together with 
the objections, to the other house, by which it shall likewise be recon- 
sidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that house, it shall become a 
law. But, in all such cases, the votes of both houses shall be determined 
by yeas and nays, and the names of the persons voting for and against 
the bill shall be entered on the journal of each house respectively. If 
any bill shall not be returned by the President within ten days (Sundays 
excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the same shall be a 
law in like manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their 
adjournment prevent its return, in which case it shall not be a law. 

Ever}' order, resolution, or vote, to which the concurrence of the 
Senate and House of Representatives may be necessar}' (except on a 
question of adjournment) shall be presented to the President of the 
United States; and before the same shall take effect, shall be approved 
by him, or, being disapproved by him, shall be repassed by two-thirds 
of the Senate and House of Representatives, according to the rules and 
limitations prescribed in case of a bill. 

Sec. 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, 
duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts, and to provide for the 
common defence and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, 
imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States. 

To borrow money on the credit of the United States. 

To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several 
States, and with the Indian tribes. 

To establish an uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on 
the subjects of bankruptcies throughout the United States. 

To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and 
fix the standard of weights and measures. 

To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and 
current coin of the United States. 

To establish post-offices and post roads. 

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for 
limited times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their 
respective writings and discoveries. 

To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court. 

To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high 
seas, and offences against the law of nations. 

To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules 
concerning captures on land and water. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 639 

To raise and support armies ; but no appropriation of money to that 
use shall be for a longer term than two years. 

To provide and maintain a navy. 

To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and 
naval forces. 

To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the 
Union, suppress insurrections, and repel invasions. 

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia, and 
for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of 
the United States, reserving to the States, respectively, the appointment 
of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the 
discipline prescribed by Congress. 

To exercise exclusive legislation, in all cases whatsoever, over such 
districts (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular 
States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the seat of government 
of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places 
purchased by the consent of the legislature of the States in which the 
same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, 
and other needful buildings. 

To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying 
into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this 
Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any depart- 
ment or officer thereof. 

Sec. 9. The migration or importation of such persons, as any of 
the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be 
prohibited by the Congress prior to the year One Thousand Eight 
Hundred and Eight; but a tax, or duty, may be imposed on such impor- 
tation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. 

The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, 
unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may 
require it. 

No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed. 

No capitation or other direct tax shall be laid, unless in proportion 
to the census, or enumeration, hereinbefore directed to be taken. 

No taxes or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any State. 

No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or 
revenue to the ports of one State over those of another; nor shall vessels 
bound to or from one State be obliged to enter, clear, or pay duties in 
another. 

No money shall be drawn from the treasury- but in consequence of 



640 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

appropriations made by law; and a regular statement and account of 
the receipts and expenditures of all public money shall be published 
from time to time. 

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States, and no 
person holding any office of profit or trust under them shall, without 
the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, 
or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign State. 

Sec. 10. No State shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confed- 
eration; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of 
credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of 
debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the 
obligation of contracts; or grant a title of nobility. 

No State shall, without the consent of the Congress, lay any imposts 
or duties on imports or exports, except what may be absolutely necessar}' 
for executing its inspection laws; and the net produce of all duties and 
imposts laid by any State on imports or exports shall be for the use of the 
treasury of the United States; and all such laws shall be subject to the 
revision and control of the Congress. 

No State shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of 
tonnage, keep troops or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any 
agreement or compact with another State or with a foreign power, or 
engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as 
will not admit of delay. 

Sec. II. The executive power shall be vested in a President of the 
United States of America. He shall hold his office during the term of 
four years, and together with the Vice-President, chosen for the same 
term, be elected as follows: 

Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the legislature thereof 
may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole number of Senators 
and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress; 
but no Senator or Representative, or person holding an office of trust or 
profit under the United States, shall be appointed an elector. 

The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by ballot 
for two persons, of whom one, at least, shall not be an inhabitant of 
the State with themselves. And they shall make a list of all the persons 
voted for, and of the number of votes for each, which list they shall 
sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of Government of the 
United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President 
of the Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Repre- 
sentatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 64 1 

The person having the greatest number of votes shall be the President, 
if such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, 
and if there be more than one who have such majority, and have an 
equal number of votes, then the House of Representatives shall im- 
mediately choose, by ballot, one of them for President, and if no person 
have a majority, then, from the five highest on the list, the said House 
shall, in like manner, choose the President. But, in choosing the 
President, the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from 
each State having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of 
a member or members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of 
all the States shall be necessary to a choice. In every case, after the 
choice of the President, the person having the greatest number of votes 
of the electors shall be Vice-President. But, if there should remain 
two or more who have equal votes, the Senate shall choose from them, 
by ballot, the Vice-President. 

The Congress may determine the time of choosing the electors, and 
the day on which they shall give their votes, which day shall be the 
same throughout the United States. 

No person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United 
States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible 
to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to the 
office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and 
been fourteen years a resident within the United States. 

In case of the removal of the President from office, or of his death, 
resignation, or inability to discharge the powers and duties of the said 
office, the same shall devolve on the Vice-President, and the Congress 
may, by law, provide for the case of removal, death, resignation, or 
inability, both of the President and Vice-President, declaring what 
officer shall act accordingly, until the disability be removed or a Presi- 
dent shall be elected. 

The President shall, at stated times, receive for his services a com- 
pensation, which shall neither be increased nor diminished during the 
period for which he shall be elected, and he shall not receive within 
that period any other emolument from the United States or any of 
them. 

Before he enter on the execution of his office he shall take the fol- 
lowing oath or affirmation: 

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office 
of the President of the United States, and will, to the best of my ability, 
preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States." 



4 



642 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

Sec. 12. The President shall be commander-in-chief of the army 
and navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several States; 
he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each 
of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of 
the respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and 
pardons for offences against the United States, except in cases of im- 
peachment. 

He shall have power, by and with the advice and consent of the 
Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present 
concur, and he shall nominate, and, by and with the adv^ice and consent 
of the Senate, shall appoint ambassadors, other public ministers and 
consuls. Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other officers of the 
United States, whose appointments are not herein otherwise provided 
for, and which shall be established by law, but the Congress may, by 
law, vest the appointment of such inferior officer as they think proper 
in the President alone, in the courts of law, or in the heads of depart- 
ments. 

The President shall have the power to fill up all vacancies that may 
happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions, which 
shall expire at the end of their next session. 

Sec. 13. He shall, from time to time, give to the Congress informa- 
tion of the state of the Union, and recommend to their consideration 
such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on 
extraordinary occasions, convene both houses, or either of them, and in 
case of disagreement between them with respect to the time of adjourn- 
ment, he may adjourn them to such time as he shall think proper; he 
shall receive ambassadors and other public ministers; he shall take care 
that the laws be faithfully executed, and shall commission all the officers 
of the United States. 

Sec. 14. The President, Vice-President, and all civil officers of the 
United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for and 
conviction of treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors. 

ARTICI.E III. 

Section i. The judicial power of the United States shall be vested 
in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may 
from time to time ordain and establish. The judges, both of the 
supreme and inferior courts, shall hold their offices during good behavior, 
and shall, at stated times, receive for their services a compensation, 
which shall not be diminished durinq- their continuance in office. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 643 

Sec. 2. The judicial power shall extend to all cases, in law and 
equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, 
and treaties made, or which shall be made, under their authority; to all 
cases affecting ambassadors, other public ministers and consuls; to all 
cases of admiralty and maritime jurisdiction; to controversies between 
two or more States, between a State and citizens of another State, 
between citizens of different States, between citizens of the same State 
claiming lands under grants of different States, and between a State, or 
the citizens thereof, and foreign States, citizens or subjects. 

In all cases affecting ambassadors other public ministers and 
consuls, and those in which a State shall be a party, the Supreme Court 
shall have original jurisdiction. In all the other cases before mentioned, 
the Supreme Court shall have appellate jurisdiction both as to law and 
fact, with such exceptions and under such regulations as the Congress 
shall make. 

The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by 
jury, and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crime shall 
have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the 
trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may, by law, have 
directed. 

Sec. 3. Treason against the United States shall consist only in 
levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them 
aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the 
testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in 
open court. 

The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason, 
but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood or forfeiture, 
except during the life of the person attainted. 

ARTICLE IV. 

Sec. I. Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the 
public acts, records and judicial proceedings of every other State. 
And the Congress may, by the general laws, prescribe the manner in 
which such acts, records and proceedings shall be proved, and the effect 
thereof. 

Sec. 2. The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privi- 
leges and immunities of citizens in the several States. 

A person charged in any State with treason, felony or other crime, 
who shall flee from justice, and be found in another State, shall, on 
demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be 



644 '^^^ STORY OF AMERICA. 

delivered up, to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the 
crime. 

No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws 
thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or reg- 
ulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall 
be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor 
may be due. 

Sec. 3. New States may be admitted by the Congress into this 
Union, but no new State shall be formed or erected within the jurisdiction 
of any other State, nor any States be formed by the junction of two or 
more States or parts of States, without the consent of the legislatures of 
the States concerned as well as of the Congress. 

The Congress shall have power to dispose of and make all need- 
ful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property 
belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitution shall 
be so construed as to prejudice any claims of the United States, or of 
any particular State. 

Sec. 4. The United States shall guarantee to ever>' State in this 
Union a republican form of government, and shall protect each of 
them against invasion, and on application of the legislature, or of the 
executive (when the legislature can not be convened), against domestic 
violence. 

article v. 

The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both houses shall deem it 
necessary, shall propose amendments to this Constitution, or, on the 
application of the legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall 
call a convention for proposing amendments, which, in either case, 
shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Constitution, 
when ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, 
or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode 
of ratification may be proposed by the Congress, provided that no 
amendment which may be made prior to the year One Thousand Eight 
Hundred and Eight shall in any manner affect the first and fourth clauses 
in the ninth section of this article; and that no State, without its con- 
sent, shall be deprived of its equal suffrage in the Senate. 

article vl 
All debts contracted and engagements entered into before the adoption 
of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under 
this Constitution as under the confederation. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 645 

This Constitution, and the laws of the United States which shall be 
made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be 
made under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme 
law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, 
anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary not- 
withstanding. 

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the mem- 
bers of the several States, legislatures, and all executive and judicial 
officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be 
bound by oath or affirmation to support this Constitution, but no relig- 
ious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public 
trust under the United States. 

ARTICLE VII. 

The ratification of the conventions of nine States shall be sufficient 
for the establishment of this Constitution between the States so ratify- 
ing the same. 

Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the States present, 
the seventeenth day of September, in the year of Our Lord, One Thou- 
sand Seven Hundred and Eighty-seven, and of the Independence of the 
United States of America the twelfth. In witness whereof we have 
hereunto subscribed our names. (Signed by the members of the Con- 
vention). 

AMENDMENTS. 

At the first session of the First Congress, held in the city of 
New York, and begun on Wednesday, the 4tli of March, 1789, 
many amendments to the National Constitution were offered for con- 
sideration. The Congress proposed ten of them to the legislatures 
of the several States. These were ratified by the constitutional num- 
ber of State legislatures by the middle of December, 1791. Five 
other amendments have since been proposed and duly ratified, and have 
become, with the other ten, a part of the National Constitution. 

The following are the amendments: 

ARTICLE I. 

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of relig- 
ion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom 
of speech, or of the press; or to the right of the people peaceably to 
assemble, and to petition the Government for redress of grievances. 

ARTICLE II. 

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a 



646 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not 
be infringed. 

ARTICLE III. 

No soldier shall, in time of peace, be quartered in any house 
without the consent of the owner, nor in time of war, but in a 
manner to be prescribed by law. 

ARTICLE IV. 
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, 
papers and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall 
not be violated, and no warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, 
supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the 
place to be searched and the person or things to be seized. 

ARTICLE V. 

No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise 
infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand 
jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the 
militia, when in actual service in time of war and public danger; 
nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put 
in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal 
case to be a witness against himself, nor to be deprived of life, lib- 
erty or property, without due process of law; nor shall private prop- 
erty be taken for public use without just compensation. 

ARTICLE VI. 
In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to 
a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and dis- 
trict wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district 
shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed 
of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the 
witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining wit- 
nesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense. 

ARTICLE VII. 
In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed 
twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact 
tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United 
States than according to the rules of common law. 

ARTICLE VIII. 

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor 
cruel and unusual punishment inflicted. 



COKSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 647 

ARTICLE IX. 
The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be 
construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. 

ARTICLE X. 
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution 
not prohibited by it to the States are reserved to the States respectively, 
or to the people. 

ARTICLE XI. 

The judicial power of the United States shall not be construed to 
extend to any suit in law or equity, commenced or prosecuted against 
the United States, by citizens of another State, or by citizens or sub- 
jects of any foreign State. 

ARTICLE XII. 

The electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote for Presi- 
dent and Vice-President, one of whom, at least, shall not be an inhabi- 
tant of the same State with themselves; they shall name- in their ballots 
the person voted for as President, and in distinct ballots the person voted 
for Vice-President, and they shall make distinct lists of all persons 
voted for as President and of all persons voted for as Vice-President, 
and of the number of votes for each, which lists they shall sign and 
certify, and transmit sealed to the seat of Government of the United 
States, directed to the President of the Senate; the President of the 
Senate shall, in the presence of the Senate and House of Representa- 
tives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall then be counted; the 
person having the greatest number of votes for President, shall be 
President, if such number be a majority of the whole number of 
electors appointed, and if no person have such majority, then from the 
persons having the highest numbers, not exceeding three, on the list of 
those voted for President, the House of Representatives shall choose 
immediately, by ballot, the President. But in choosing the President, 
the votes shall be taken by States, the representation from each State 
having one vote; a quorum for this purpose shall consist of a member 
or members from two-thirds of the States, and a majority of all the 
States shall be necessary to a choice. And if the House of Represen- 
tatives shall not choose a President whenever the right of choice shall 
devolve upon them, before the fourth day of March next following, then 
the Vice-President shall act as President, as in the case of death or 
other constitutional disability of the President. The person having the 
greatest number of votes as Vice-President shall be Vice-President, if 



648 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

such number be a majority of the whole number of electors appointed, 
and if no person have a majority, then from the two highest numbers 
on the list the Senate shall choose the Vice-President; a quorum for the 
purpose shall consist of two-thirds of the whole number of Senators, 
and a majority of the whole number shall be necessan,' to a choice. 
But no person constitutionally ineligible to the office of President shall 
be eliofible to that of Vice-President of the United States. 

ARTICLE XIII. 

Section i. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a 
punishment for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly con- 
victed, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to 
their jurisdiction. 

Sec. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by 
appropriate legislation. 

article XIV. 

Section i. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, 
and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States 
and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce 
any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens 
of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, 
liberty or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person 
within its jurisdiction the equal protection of laws. 

Sec. 2. Representatives shall be appointed among the several 
States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole 
number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But 
when the right to vote, at any election for the choice of electors for 
President and Vice-President of the United States, Representative in 
Congress, the executive or judicial officers of a State, or the members 
of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of 
such State, being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United 
States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or 
other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in 
the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to 
the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such 
State. 

Sec. 3. No person shall be Senator or Representative in Congress, 
or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or 
military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having 
previously taken oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the 



CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES. 649 

United States, or as a member of any State legislature or as an execu- 
tive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the 
United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against 
the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress 
may, by a vote of two-thirds of each house, remove such disability. 

Sec. 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, 
authorized by law, including debts incurred by payment of pensions and 
bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not 
be questioned. But neither the United States or any State shall assume 
to pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion 
against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of 
any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held 
illegal and void. 

Sec. 5. Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate 
legislation, the provisions of this article. 

ARTICLE XV. 

Section i. The right of the citizens of the United States shall 
not be denied or abridged by the United States, or in any State, on 
account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. 

Sec. 2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by 
appropriate legislation. 



NATURALIZATION LAWS 



OF THE 



UNITED STATES. 



The conditions under and the manner in which an alien may be 
admitted to become a citizen of the United States are prescribed by 
sections 2,165-74 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. 

DECLARATION OF INTENTION. 

The alien must declare upon oath before a Circuit or District Court 
of the United States, or a District or Supreme Court of the Territories, 
or a court of record of any of the States having common law jurisdic- 
tion and a seal and clerk, two years at least prior to his admission, that 
it is, bona fide, his intention to become a citizen of the United States, 
and to renounce forever all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince 
or State, and particularly to the one of which he may be at the time a 
citizen or subject. 

OATH ON APPLICATION FOR ADMISSION. 

He must, at the time of his application to be admitted, declare on 
oath, before one of the courts specified, "that he will support the Con- 
stitution of the United States, and that he absolutely and entirely 
renounces and abjures all allegiance and fidelity to every foreign prince, 
potentate. State, or sovereignty, and particularly, by name, to the prince, 
potentate. State or sovereignty of which he was before a citizen or sub- 
ject, " which proceedings must be recorded by the clerk of the court. 

CONDITIONS FOR CITIZENSHIP. 

If it shall appear to the satisfaction of the court to which the alien 
has applied that he has resided continuously within the United States 
for at least five years, and within the State or Territory where such 
court is at the time held one year at least; and that during that time 
"he has behaved as a man of good moral character, attached to the 
principles of the Constitution of the United States, and well disposed 
to the good order and happiness of the same," he will be admitted to 
citizenship. 



NATURALIZATION LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES. 65 1 

TITLES OF NOBILITY. 

If the applicant has borne any hereditary title or order of nobility, 
he must make an express renunciation of the same at the time of his 
application. 

SOLDIERS. 

An alien of the age of twenty-one years and upward who has been in the 
the armies of the United States, and has been honorably discharged there- 
from, may become a citizen on his petition, without any previous decla- 
ration of intention, provided that he has resided in the United States at 
least one year previous to his application and is of good moral char- 
acter. 

MINORS. 

An alien under the age of twenty-one who has resided in the United 
States three years next preceding his arriving at that age, and who has 
continued to reside therein to the time he may make application to be 
admitted a citizen thereof, may, after he arrives at the age of twenty- 
one years, and after he has resided five years within the United States, 
including the three years of his minority, be admitted a citizen; but he 
must make a declaration on oath and prove to the satisfaction of the 
court that for two years next preceding it has been his bona fide inten- 
tion to become a citizen. 

CHILDREN OF NATURALIZED CITIZENS. 

The children of persons who have been duly naturalized, being 
under the age of twenty-one years at the time of the naturalization of 
their parents, shall, if dwelling in the United States, be considered 
as citizens thereof. 

CITIZENS' CHILDREN WHO ARE BORN ABROAD. 

The children of persons who now are or have been citizens of the 
United States are, though born out of the limits and jurisdiction of 
the United States, considered as citizens thereof 

PROTECTION ABROAD TO NATURALIZED CITIZENS. 

Section 2,000 of the Revised Statutes of the United States declares 
that "all naturalized citizens of the United States, while in foreign 
countries, are entitled to and shall receive from this Government the 
same protection of persons and property which is accorded to native- 
born citizens." 



652 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

RIGHT OF SUFFRAGE. 

The right to vote comes from the State and is a State gift. Natural- 
ization is a Federal right and is a gift of the Union, not of any one 
State. In nearly one-half the Union aliens (who have declared inten- 
tions) vote and have the right to vote equally with naturalized or native- 
born citizens. In the other half only actual citizens may vote. The 
Federal naturalization laws apply to the whole Union alike, and provide 
that no alien male may be naturalized until after five years' residence. 
Even after five years' residence and due naturalization he is not entitled 
to vote unless the laws of the State confer the privilege upon him, and 
he may vote in one State (IMichigan) six months after landing, if he 
has immediately declared his intention, under United States laws, to 
become a citizen. 



CHAPTER CIX. 



■\ 



t 



ITS OLD ASCENDANCY — THE INVENTION OF THE MONITOR THE DETE- 
RIORATION OF THE NAVY, AFTER THE CIVIL WAR — APPOINT- 
MENT OF THE ADVISORY BOARD THE NEW 

NAVY — IMPROVEMENTS IN NAVAL ARTILLERY — 
ORGANIZATION OF THE NAVY DEPART- 
MENT SKETCH OF JOHN ERICS- 




^""^ SON — USES OF THE NAVY. 



HE STORY OF AMERICA would not be com- 
plete without a few words concerning the United 
States Navy. Pride in its navy was one of the 
earliest sentiments cherished in the hearts of the 
American people, and the gallant deeds performed 
upon the high seas in the first years of the nation's 
existence will not fade from the pages of its 
history. In referring to the navy of the past, it is im- 
possible to avoid recalling the individual interest and 
personal satisfaction that all its members felt in it and such 
feelings were fostered by the superiority of its ships. 

The colonies could not afford to build vessels of ade- 
quate size to contend with men-of-war that they had to 
meet in battle, but the few that they owned were well 
adapted to meet the small British cruisers, and to capture 
merchantmen. The frigates of this early day were small vessels, vary- 
ing from six hundred to a thousand tons. The ships that were built in 
1794 were constructed according to the most advanced ideas of the 
time, and the wooden vessels belonging to the United States and sailing 
the ocean between 1840 and i860 were the finest in the world. The old 
frigate Congress^ and the sloop Portsmouth were noble ships for their 
time, and models which other maritime nations imitated. During this 
greatest era of sailing vessels, from 1840 to i860, steam began to be 
used, and was introduced as an auxiliary power. The naturally invent- 



654 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

ive genius of American ship-builders enabled them to adopt the new 
force so successfully that the United States vessels continued to be 
prominent for many years as models from which other naval powers 
mio-ht copy. Before sailing vessels were finally abandoned, a number 
of large ships were built. These ships were a sort of a compromise 
between steamers and sailing vessels, and they did good service. The 
Mississippi^ the Missouri^ the Susquehanna, the Saranac and the Pow- 
hatan belonged to this class. They were launched between 1840 and 
1850, and were a credit to the country. The Powhatan is now an 
interesting relic of this transition period of naval architecture. She 
was built of seasoned live oak, and retained so much of her original 
seaworthiness that, in 1886, she was still upon the list of the navy. In 
the last years of her usefulness, the Powhata^i was employed in trans- 
porting relief crews from Aspinwall to Panama. 

When those who realized the great future power of steam began to 
agitate the subject of supplanting sailing vessels by steamers, there was 
at first a great deal of hesitancy about making such a radical change. 
It was advocated that the new ships should be provided with full steam 
power, using sails as an auxiliary, but the old pride in the sailing 
vessels could not be made to yield at once to the new inventions. It 
was considered a great concession to admit steam at all, but the United 
States Government was not the only nation conservative in improving 
its navy. The other maritime powers pursued the same course, and for 
many years the United States retained the lead in producing the most 
creditable types of war ships. 

In 1854, Congress passed a law ordering the construction of a new 
class of frigates. The Mcrrijnac was the first of these new vessels to be 
launched, and she showed a great advance in ship-building. When she 
was sent to European waters she attracted great attention from foreign 
naval architects, who immediately copied her. The vessels built after 
the Mcrrimac model were the best ships of the time in the English 
navy. In 1858, what was known as the Hartford class of large 
corvettes began to be built. This class comprised the Hartford, the 
Brooklyn, the Pcnsacola, the Richynond and the Lancaster. These 
ships were imitated by England and France. They were of good speed 
and were used for cruising in foreign ports. Being built of wood, they 
required frequent repairs, and they are gradually being struck from the 
list of commissioned vessels. 

The Kearsarge belonged to another type of war ship. The Kear- 
sarge was built in 1859, and several vessels of the same pattern were 



THE UNITED STATES NAVY. 655 

launched just before the war. During the war, vessels were built with 
a special regard for the purposes for which they were to be used. It 
was necessary to construct ships as rapidly as possible, in order to pro- 
tect the coast, and what were known as "ninety-day gunboats" and 
"double-enders" were hastily built. Merchant steamers were also 
armed with such batteries as they could carry. This extraordinary 
increase of vessels, under the pressure of necessity, was not productive of 
permanent benefit to the navy, and the emergency ships soon dis- 
appeared when they were no longer needed. The Juniata and Ossipee, 
which were launched in 1852, belonged to the Kearsarge type and 
proved capable of good service. 

The Monitor marked a new era in naval architecture and created a 
great sensation when it appeared. It was the invention of Captain 
John Ericsson, and saved the Union fleet at Hampton Roads. Captain 
Ericsson's inventive mind had early conceived the idea of the revolving 
turret in connection with the floating battery. In 1854, he had offered 
the device to Napoleon III, only to have it rejected; but he believed in 
it, if Napoleon did not, and, in 1861, proposed the novel idea to the 
United States Naval Department. His proposition met with encourage- 
ment, and he was given a contract to build his first vessel, after his long- 
cherished plan. By an extraordinary display of energy, the vessel was 
completed in one hundred days, and arrived at Hampton Roads March 
9, 1862, just after the iron-clad Merritnac had sunk the Cumberland 
and the Cofigress^ and was about to destroy the whole wooden fleet. 
The "cheesebox on a raft," as the Confederates called the Monitor^ 
defeated the Merriniac^ and the complete success of Captain Erics- 
son's invention revolutionized the navies of the whole civilized world. 

The original Monitor was lost at sea; but other ships were built 
after Ericsson's peculiar model. There is no doubt that the Monitor 
was the first of the turreted vessels of the world. Although it made so 
great an innovation in naval construction, it| essential principles were 
never universally approved by naval architects. The Monitor was like 
a raft carrying a revolving turret. It was constantly submerged by the 
waves, but its depth of draft insured stability. The circular form of 
the revolving turret was well suited to deflect the enemy's projectiles. 
Machinery was employed to move the turret and so point the guns, and 
there were many other advantages in the new war ship. Since the 
war, many improvements have been made in the monitors, and they 
form a conspicuous feature of modern fleets. 

The double-turreted monitors, of which the Terror is an example, 



656 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

were subsequently built. They were, unfortunately, constructed of 
wood, which had already been condemned abroad as an unsuitable 
material for building war ships. The duration of these wooden turreted 
vessels was not long, and new vessels of this order, three of which bear 
old names, were rebuilt of iron. 

In 1874, some vessels known as the Ada?ns class were built and 
launched. These vessels were of wood, convenient and handy, and 
were intended as cruisers in time of peace. The Marion class of sloops, 
launched about this time, were also built of wood. The Alo'i is one of 
three vessels that were built of iron in 1874. She was constructed as a 
laudable experiment to improve and change the material for construc- 
tion. This effort was partly induced by pressure from the iron interest 
of the countr>\ The change was, however, limited to the small class 
of diminutive vessels. This improvement in material was not, however, 
relied on, for in 1876 the Trenton was launched. She was built of wood, 
and represented the latest type of ships in the navy. 

For fifteen years after the civil war, the navy steadily deteriorated 
and its decrepit condition was a reproach to the country. Its old 
reputation for proficiency and advancement was lost. The Government 
pursued a temporizing policy and maintained an economical attitude 
toward it. It was, however, not the intention that the navy should be 
neglected or abolished. Yearly appropriations were passed for its sup- 
port, and its needs were frequently presented to Congress. The 
amounts appropriated were, however, not large enough to permit many 
new constructions of ships or artillery. Wooden ships were repaired 
where steel ships should have been built, and cast-iron guns were used 
where steel guns should have been placed. 

The rapidity with which a large fleet of cruising vessels was built 
and brought together during the civil war, left the impression upon the 
public mind that, in case of any great emergency, the deficiency in the 
navy could be hastily supplied. Being favored by peace at home and 
abroad, it seemed wiser to allow other countries to improve upon naval 
equipments, believing that when the necessary time came, the United 
States could profit by the experiments of other maritime powers. 
After a long interval of indifference in regard to the navy, attention 
was at last centered on the subject. It was seen how rapidly naval 
improvements had been made in foreign countries, and how utterly the 
United States was distanced by the other maritime powers. A grow- 
ing desire arose to repair the effects of past neglect, and Congress 
began to move in the matter. The origin of the first effort to improve 



THE UNITED STATES NAVY. 657 

the navy dates from June, 1881, when the Advisory Board was appointed 
to consider and to report on the needs of the navy. This board, on 
November 7, 1881, decided that the United States Navy should consist 
of seventy unarmored cruisers of steel. It reported that there were 
thirty-two vessels in the navy fit for cruisers, and it indicated the char- 
acter of the vessels that should be built. This board considered 
unarmored vessels, and did not discuss the subject of armored ships, 
although it expressed the opinion that such vessels were indispensable in 
time of war. It was some time before any practical results followed 
from the action of this board; but in 1883, Congress authorized the 
building of three steam cruisers and a dispatch boat. These vessels 
were the Chicago^ the Boston, the Atalanta and the Dolphin. In the 
act of Congress, approved in March, 1885, four additional vessels were 
authorized. These were the first steps toward our new navy. 

Up to the time of this new movement, no steel for ships had been 
rolled in the United States. Construction in American iron plates had 
been extensively carried on, but steel-plating was imported at great cost 
to the ship-builder. The question of naval material has always been a 
most important one. Before 1840, the science of naval construction 
had not advanced for two hundred years, all ships being built of wood. 
In the next two decades there was rapid progress, and since the war 
innumerable inventions have revolutionized ship-building. 

The Dolphin caused much discussion when first launched, but she 
has proved a staunch vessel and capable of good service. Though not 
regarded as a vessel for fighting purposes, she is a ship of the class that is 
needed in all navies as a dispatch boat. Her advent in the navy marked 
a new period — the inauguration of the successful manufacture in the 
United States of American rolled steel ship-plating. The Dolphin is the 
first vessel, whether for naval or for commercial purposes, to be built 
entirely of steel of home manufacture. The Dolphin has proved herself 
eminently successful, and, with the exception of the steam yacht 
Atalanta, is the fastest sea steamer of her displacement built in the 
United States. 

All the ships of the new navy are built of steel and modeled after 
well-tested designs. Fifteen of the vessels that were last authorized by 
Congress are (in 1889) in course of construction or but recently com- 
pleted. On October 8, 1888, the United States cruiser ^(T///;«<9r^ was 
launched at Philadelphia. The Baltimore was the first cruiser built 
for the new navy. 

Before the Samoan disaster, the United States numbered ninety-two 



658 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

serviceable vessels, fifteen of the first class, thirteen of the second class, 
forty-three of the third class and seven of the fourth class. These 
carried in all four hundred and eleven guns. Besides^ there were twelve 
tugs and a number of wooden sailing vessels. 

The new navy, when completed, will comprise of the armored 
vessels, the Puritan^ the Miantonomah^ the Amphitrite^ the Monadnock 
and the Terror. All of these are iron-clad and each carry four lo-inch 
breech-loading guns, besides powerful secondary batteries. Of this 
class the Maine and the Texas were the last to be launched. In addi- 
tion to these armored vessels, there are to be six iron-clad monitors, 
each carrying fifteen-inch smooth-bore guns. Of the unarmored vessels 
recently built, the Chicago^ the Boston, the Atalanta and the Dolphin 
are all of steel. Last to be built are the Charleston, the Baltimore, the 
Newark, the Yorktown, the Philadelphia, the San Francisco, the Con- 
cord and the Be?inington. They carry altogether ninety-four rifle guns. 
There has recently been built a steel cruiser, Vesuvius, with three 12- 
inch guns and two second-class torpedo boats. Twenty-eight vessels 
in all have been added to the navy, and Congress appropriated an addi- 
tional sum of two million dollars for floating batteries and other naval 
equipments. With the rehabilitation of the navy an effort was made to 
dispense with all the old vessels that had lost prestige with the improve- 
ment in ship-building. The few wooden ships which carr>' the flag to 
other countries were gradually condemned, and it has been estimated 
that in 1898 the entire wooden navy will have disappeared. 

A few words about naval artillery cannot but be interesting. From 
the time of the invention of cast-iron cannon, in the year 1558, the 
improvement in artillery was very slow. It was thought that the 
cannon was such a wonderful invention that it was an impertinence to 
think of improving it. The first guns were muzzle-loaders. There had 
been rude attempts at breech-loading, but they were soon abandoned. 
The guns were of a number of calibres to suit the weight of the batteries 
on the ships. At the end of the eighteenth century what was known as 
an eighteen-pounder was the preferred gun for the main-deck batteries 
of frigates. The eighteen-pounder was the largest calibre used on the 
ships of the United Colonies of North America in the war of the 
Rebellion. In the war of 181 2, the carronade was adopted as a spar- 
deck armament of frigates. The advantage of large calibre guns was 
firmly impressed upon those who occupied themselves with naval 
matters. As the fleet was developed, the twenty-four-pounders gave 
way to the thirty-two-pounders, and then the forty-two-pounders were 



THE UNITED STATES NA\^. 659 

introduced. In time, the forty-two-pounder was, however, abandoned 
and the thirty-two-pounder was retained as the largest calibre. In the 
interval between 1840 and 1845, the thirty-two-pounder was replaced by 
a gun of the same calibre, of greater weight, called the long thirty-two- 
pounder. Up to this time, no explosive projectiles had been used with 
cannon, properly so-called. Mortars were originally used for project- 
ing huge balls of stone at high angles. They were first used in 1624, 
but the unwieldly weight of the instruments prevented their use in the 
field. To provide for field use, light mortars were cast, which, when 
mounted on wheels, were denominated "howitzers." A mortar was 
never used in naval armament, although it has been employed upon 
ships engaged in bombarding cities. The success of explosive pro- 
jectiles did not immediately lead to their application to horizontal firing 
from cannon. 

The shell gun marks an important event in naval artillery. It 
required many years to bring it into general use, so as to displace the 
solid-shot gun. The first United States vessel, the battery of which 
was composed exclusively of shell guns, was the sloop-of-war Ports- 
mouthy in 1856. With shell guns, much depended upon the successful 
working of the fuse of the shell, without which it was but a hollow 
substitute for a solid shot. The fuses which were used to explode the 
first bombs were long wooden plugs, bored and filled with powder. 
This fuse was improved upon, and the United States naval fuse became 
justly famous, one feature of it being a simple and an effective de\ice 
called a water-cap, which guarded against injury from water when Lhe 
shell was fired. 

Previous to the introduction of shells, incendiary projectiles had 
been in use. They w^ere simply intended to set fire to the ships of the 
enemy, and were not explosive. Hot shot was employed for this 
purpose, but it was used chiefly in batteries on shore. Within the 
twenty-five years following the civil war, marvelous advances have been 
made in artillery'. Dynamite has entered into the composition of 
explosives, and the carrying power of all sort of firearms has been greatly 
increased. Steel guns have succeeded those of iron, and will be used 
in the artillery of the new navy. The necessity of a change in the 
naval artillerv' of the United States was recognized for a number of 
years, but it was impossible to obtain steel of domestic manufacture for 
the new guns. So the men-of-war were compelled to make their cruises 
abroad with antiquated batteries that were inferior to those carried by 
ships belonging to other nations. 



66o THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

The torpedo has had a great influence upon naval warfare. Millions 
of dollars have been spent by European powers in experimenting with 
this deadly implement of destruction. Its introduction into the artillery 
of the navy necessitates an additional fleet of torpedo boats. In former 
times, a fleet consisted simply of battle ships. Dispatch boats were 
added later. The torpedo had made it necessary to adopt a new class 
of vessels, called the "torpedo boat captures." The duty of these boats 
is to destroy the torpedo boats of the enemy. They have great speed 
and are provided with powerful batteries. The English and French 
governments were the first to adopt them. 

In the early period of its history there was no such branch of the 
Government as the Department of War. In the first of our great wars 
(that of 1 812) there were only twenty ships in the navy, the organization 
of which was of the simplest character; but these few ships were the 
best of their class afloat. There being no organization of policy, each 
commander of a vessel was compelled to act for himself; thus Hull, 
Decatur and Porter — all of them young men — made great reputations 
for themselves by their sagacity and courage. In 181 5 a board of three 
officers was appointed, styled the Naval Commissioners, who had charge 
of all the work of the department. The board was to perform, under a 
secretary, all the ministerial duties of his office. In 1845, this board of 
commissioners was replaced by the bureau system, which, with some 
changes, has continued until the present time. The bureaus, when first 
organized, were not qualified to direct the navy. As a working force, 
the navy was without any direction. There was no responsible officer 
to superintend the training of officers or the enrollment, assignment and 
disciplining of seamen. No one was competent to attend to the dis- 
position of vessels or other important work. The effect of this half- 
reform became evident in 1861, when the department was suddenly 
plunged into war. No one had the faintest idea what to do or whose 
business it was to do anything. The chiefs of the bureaus had various 
duties. One managed the navy yards, another had charge of the con- 
struction of ships and a third superintended the building of guns. A 
fourth supplied provisions. The department had no office organized 
for staff" work; it contained no information upon which to act; it had no 
machinery by which information could be procured, and at this critical 
time the department, which had been maintained for sixty years for 
the service of the country, was found to be entirely wanting in the 
means of conducting war. At this time. Captain Fox was appointed 
chief clerk of the Navy Department, and he did a lasting service in 



THE UNITED STATES NAVY. 66 1 

organizing an efficient administration of naval affairs, and in appointing 
able men to carry out his plans. The number of the war bureaus was 
increased during the war to eight. In 1882, an important office was 
added to these bureaus. It was called the Office of Naval Intelligence, 
and was created for the purpose of collecting and systematizing informa- 
tion concerning the resources and movements of foreign navies. This 
office was a most important improvement in the management of the 
naval department. 

Any account of naval progress would be incomplete without a 
sketch of John Ericsson, who gave such an impetus to naval construc- 
tion by his wonderful inventions. His life was eventful, and the most 
useful part of it was linked with the history of his adopted country, 
America. John Ericsson was born in Sweden, in 1803. At eleven 
years of age, he was appointed cadet of engineers, and two years later 
was chosen as a leveler on the grand ship canal between the Baltic and 
the North Sea, planning the work for over six hundred men. In 1820 
he became an ensign in the Swedish army, rising rapidly to the rank 
to lieutenant and captain. In 1825 ^^ invented a condensing flame 
engine, and the next year went to England to introduce it. Coal, 
however, did not effect the same results as pine wood, and the invention 
was not a success. In 1827 Ericsson resigned from the Swedish army 
and went to England, where he devoted himself to the invention of 
various devices to be used at sea. In 1829 he invented the steam car- 
riage "Novelty," and beat Stevenson's "Rocket" in atrial contest. In 
1833 he invented the caloric engine, which excited the wonder of the 
scientific world, and resulted, two years later, in the completion of the 
caloric ship Ericsson. In 1839, at the urgent request of Commodore 
Stockton, of the United States Navy, Ericsson came to the United 
States and applied his screw propeller principle to the war ship Prince- 
ton. At the World's Fair in London, in 1851, Ericsson obtained the 
prize for his numerous inventions. On March 9, 1862, he had the satis- 
faction of seeing his long-cherished turret plans carried out in the 
Monitor. 

In 1869 Ericsson built a fleet of thirty vessels for the Spanish Gov- 
ernment for the protection of Cuba. In 1883 he constructed his sun 
motor as a last gift to science. He contributed many scientific articles 
to various magazines. Many honors were conferred on John Ericsson 
by Sweden, and in July, 1888, on the attainment of his eighty-fifth 
year, he was especially honored by a visit from the representatives of 
the King of Sweden, who sent him a token of appreciation of his 



662 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

genius. He was made a Knight of the Royal Orders of Denmark, and 
was awarded the grand cross of naval merit by King Alphonso, of 
Spain. In character, Captain Ericsson was singularly quiet and retir- 
ing. He was very little known in the neighborhood where he lived, 
and he was an active man up to the time of his death. One of the 
excuses he gave for not receiving visitors on his last birthda)- was that 
he was "too busy, as he had not yet completed his life-work," One of 
the curious traits of his character was the total absence of anxiety to 
personally see the workings of any of his machinery. He was never 
on board the Destroyer but once after she was completed. In fashion- 
ing an invention, he worked almost entirely from drawings, and knew 
just as well how every part of the finished machinery looked, or should 
look, as though he had handled it a thousand times. Captain Ericsson 
died March 9, 1889, in the eighty-sixth year of his age. 

The United States Navy will henceforth rank with the navies of the 
other maritime powers. The real use of the navy is to provide the 
country with means of carrying on war, and it may seem that there is 
little necessity of a navy in time of peace. It has been said that, inas- 
much as the national policy has been peaceful, and inasmuch as the 
United States has never been allied with any foreign power, there will 
be no danger of future naval combats. If, however, the Government 
should neglect the means of national defense, the countr>' is liable to 
suflfer most unexpectedly. No country is secure from an invasion of its 
rights. Within the last hundred years, the United States has been at 
war six times, including the French hostilities in 1798, The causes 
that brought about these wars have been adjusted, but new causes may 
arise at any time. In the event of an European war (and there are 
always rumors of some foreign complication) the position of the United 
States as an unarmed neutral would be extremely uncertain. The navy 
protects American interests by its moral force as well as its maritime 
strength. If it were abolished, it would be impossible for the United 
States to maintain its standing as a great nation. 

The duties of the navy, apart from the necessities of war, are numer- 
ous. It was stated by the first Advisory Board that vessels of the navy 
were required for "surveying deep-sea soundings, the advancement and 
protection of American commerce, exploration, protection of American 
life and property endangered by war between foreign countries, and 
service in support of American policy where foreign government is 
concerned," 

The navy has been called the police of the ocean, and it is of 



THE UNITED STATES NAVY. 663 

inestimable service in protecting commerce. In exploration, it has sent 
out expeditions of such a daring character as to astonish the world. 
When reorganized and fully equipped, it will be once more a credit to 
the country, and a means by which great things may be accomplished. 
It is maintained at an annual expenditure of from twelve to twenty 
millions, and is a costly adjunct to the Government. 



CHAPTER ex. 



s ©n-raorraui 



li[^Hl' 



LL histoty is but a superficial record. Beneath the 
simple outline of great events, there is a complex 
network of human experiences. "The Story of 
America" is fraught with vivid interest. It is a 
narrative that is most dramatic in incident — its 
pages are illumined with glorious deeds and great 
achievements. Yet the written histor}- is but the 
smallest part of the whole wonderful stor}' of the 
mighty nation that was born one hundred years ago. 
Many a hero who suffered hardships, endured priva- 
tion and worked patiently is unchronicled in books. 
Many a hard-fought battle is unknown to those who 
profit by past struggles. The heroes did not all enlist 
in armies and the battles were not all fought with 
sword and musket. Those who cultivated fruitful fields and estab- 
lished new homes in the wilderness were all heroes, and the cour- 
age that they displayed was not less noble than that which led others 
to the cannon's mouth. War ships and naval artillery, marching regi- 
ments and Gatling guns constitute a more impressive vocabulary than 
log houses and plowshares, struggling colonies and farming implements, 
yet all were of equal importance in founding a new nation. It is nat- 
ural to dwell upon the great days in histor>'— days when victorious 
battles were fought and wonderful discoveries were made — yet such 
days are composed of hours and moments that are important in individ- 
ual histories of which the world never hears. As individual histories 
are the elements of national histories, those who read "The Stor>' of 
America" aright will remember the struggles and disappointments that 
underlie many of its pages, and helpful lessons may be drawn. The his- 
tory of the past is one of self-reliance and triumphant effort, but it has no 
more significance than the daily record which belongs to the present. 




what's to-morrow? 665 

One by one, the great men who were illlustrious upon the battle 
fields of the the Rebellion are passing away. Many of the brave hearts 
that beat with patriotic ardor are stilled forever. There are no new 
heroes, and at first thought it seems as if a common-place epoch had been 
reached. Columbus voyaging to an unknown land. Ponce de Leon 
searching for the fountain of youth, and Pocahontas saving the life of Cap- 
tain John Smith, are figures conspicuous in the romantic period, when dar- 
ing explorers sailed from foreign shores to claim the new country. The 
landing of the Puritans on Plymouth Rock and their subsequent priva- 
tions have furnished material for many a tale and poem. The early 
days of New York, Boston and New Orleans are tinged with strangely 
romantic incidents. The frequent wars are each memorable for won- 
derful deeds of valor. A peculiar glamour is thrown about the lives of 
Washington and Lafayette. The early statesmen are remembered as 
extraordinary men and the speeches of the orators of the past stir the 
hearts of rising generations. Looking backward, the present appears 
devoid of all that made the past glorious. But peace reigns quietly, 
prosperity sheds a tranquil influence over the nation and there is no 
longer need of fervid oratory and martial music. The old chronicles of 
battles and bloodshed are finished. Science has so improved the imple- 
ments of war that any future combats would be mere massacres, and all 
nations are rising above the practice of what is only "splendid murder." 

The new history will be a chronology of intellectual achievements. 
The Americans surpass all other people in their inventive genius. The 
names that will ornament the future history of the United States will 
be those that have become famous because associated with men who 
have helped the progress of the world by some brilliant thought or 
ingenious experiment. Few characters will stand out in bold relief 
among the many people of the nation. There will be no more hero 
worship. It is no longer the fashion to exalt men above their true 
worth. The age is critical and recognizes the human infirmities of its 
great men, although it still pays tribute to the superior qualities by 
which they excel. The number of those who will be honored will be 
diminished, because every year the standards of excellence are higher. 
Education is no longer for the few, but for the many. Although the 
present may be unmarked by any external crisis, it is a time of great 
intellectual activity, and future years will bring a rich harvest of 
wisdom and justice. 

In the twenty-five years since the Civil War, the nation has 
attained a prosperity that is marvelous. Time has worked out many 



666 THE STORY OF AMERICA. 

of the problems that puzzled the statesmen of a quarter of a century ago. 
From the ruins of the war, a new South has risen — a South rich in the 
traditions of a brilliant past and heroic in its efforts to make a splendid 
future. And to-day, who shall judge the South harshly? In all sin- 
cerity, it defended an institution which had been introduced by those 
who, in the early days of the colonies, represented the best interests of 
the struggling people. Its errors of judgment were due to wrong edu- 
cation — to inherited theories that were not in harmony with the spirit 
of humanity or independence. It staked all in protecting what it 
considered its rights— it lost everything. Many gallant soldiers laid 
down their lives in defending their native States, and among the 
Confederate generals, there were men of whom the whole nation might 
have been proud. In the years that are coming, broader education 
and greater liberality of opinion will heal all differences. In senti- 
ment, there will no longer be any North or South, only one great 
nation that remembers those who sleep in soldiers' graves as brothers, 
not as friends or foes. 

"The Story of America" is but just begun. The chapters that are 
being added every day will tell of buying and selling, sowing and 
reaping. Commerce will widen, new lands will be cultivated. The 
external history may contain little that is new or fascinating, yet the 
age will be rich with grand opportunities for better living. Already 
great things are being accomplished. New paths of science and lit- 
erature are opened. The future annals of the nation will be written 
with a wider knowledge, a deeper insight. Yet what of the morrow? 



